/ 15 February 1999

ZUMA LASHES RESEARCHERS

MEDICAL researchers seeking an Aids vaccine were lambasted on Monday by South African Health Minister Nkosazana Zuma for ignoring the region where the disease is most prevalent. “About 70% of the cases of Aids in the world are in sub-Saharan Africa, but world research into a vaccine is not into the type of virus found in sub-Saharan Africa,” she said. More than three million of South Africa’s 40 million inhabitants are already HIV-positive. Zuma said that in KwaZulu-Natal one in three pregnant women attending ante-natal clinics are HIV carriers.

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