South Africa’s cabinet met in a special session in August and decided to finally distributed anti-HIV drugs . . . after it finishes a “detailed operational plan” to handle the distribution of such drugs. The decision was announced to coincide with the conclusion of an AIDS conference in South Africa.
Currently less than 30,000 South Africans take anti-retroviral drugs, though the government’s own report suggested that close to 500,000 could benefit from the availability of the drugs.
South African AIDS activist Zakie Achmat preferred to take a cautious approach to the announcement, telling the BBC,
We will wait to see the actual operational plan before celebration. But for all of us living with HIV in South Africa, and our families, this is the first sign of hope.
This is quite a turnaround from the same government whose Health Minister, Manto Tshabalala-Msimang has recently taken to suggesting that rather than anti-retrovirals, what AIDS patients in South Africa need to do to boost their immune systems is consume large quantities the African sweet potato, hypoxis. The few studies of large scale consumption of hypoxis, however, suggest that if it had any effect at all it would likely be a deleterious one for people suffering from HIV.
Sources:
SA activists hail AIDS drug U-turn. The BBC, August 9, 2003.
S. Africa to distribute AIDS drugs. CNN, August 8, 2003.
i wonder when are we going to have the cure for HIV/AIDS ? we are living on an age with very high technology but still we have not found a cure for this disease.