Health News
2007-03-10
South Africa sees
1 million on AIDS drugs by 2011
South Africa sees
up to 1 million people being on antiretroviral drugs by
2011 under a national plan to fight AIDS, a disease th
South Africa sees
up to 1 million people being on antiretroviral drugs by
2011 under a national plan to fight AIDS, a disease that is
estimated to kill 1,000 South Africans a day,
officials said on Friday.
South Africa
launched a five-year HIV/AIDS strategy last year, vowing to
cut new infections and deliver treatment and support to at
least 80% its people infected with HIV by 2011.
Officials will
present a final draft of the plan to a health summit next
week, after which it will be approved and adopted by the
country's National AIDS Council.
Acting health
minister Jeff Radebe, who is standing in for the
controversial, ailing health minister Manto
Tshabalala-Msimang, called the plan a huge step in the
right direction.
"There is an
emerging consensus on what needs to be done in South
Africa. Our job is to make sure this does not fail," Radebe
told a news conference.
More than 5
million of South Africa's 45 million people are already
believed to be infected with HIV, while close to two million
people have died from the disease.
AIDS activists
say the disease kills about 1,000 South Africans every day
and have long accused the government of failing to come to
grips with the crisis. United Nations and South
African government estimates of AIDS deaths are close
to this.
Nomonde Xundu,
the health ministry's chief director for HIV/AIDS, said
the plan set an ambitious target of enrolling one million
South Africans on antiretroviral drugs by
2011—up from about 200,000 now.
"We originally
discussed a target of about 650,000 people on
antiretrovirals by 2011, but then people said perhaps we
should push that a little further, to about a million
or so," she said.
But she added
that the target—which matches the current number of
HIV-positive South Africans now in need of the lifesaving
drugs—might prove difficult to reach.
"There is
stigma...we're not getting people coming forward to access
these services," she said.
Xundu said the
plan would seek to halve new annual HIV infections from
the estimated 400,000 seen in 2005 and would cost in the
region of 25 billion rand ($3.3 billion), most of it
to be paid out of South Africa's budget.
Health analysts
and AIDS activists have hailed South Africa's aggressive
new approach to its AIDS crisis, which has long been dogged
by political controversy and accusations of government
foot-dragging.
Tshabalala-Msimang, who has been on sick leave for much of
the past four months, had come in for particular
attack for her reluctance to back antiretroviral drugs
and advocacy of natural remedies including garlic and
beetroot as HIV treatments. (Andrew Quinn, Reuters)
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