A government-appointed team on Tuesday handed over to the health minister a detailed plan on how to fight the scourge of Aids in South Africa, including the provision of anti-retroviral drugs, a spokesperson for the team said.
Team head Anthony Mbewu said Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang is to study the report before passing it to the cabinet for final approval.
”The cabinet will take the final decision on how the roll-out will occur,” he said.
South Africa’s government has up to now avoided implementing an Aids treatment programme, despite a UN claim that almost 1 000 people die of the disease each day among a total of nearly five-million citizens with HIV or full-blown Aids.
Early last month, the cabinet instructed the health ministry to develop a detailed operational plan to make anti-retrovirals available to people with HIV and Aids by the end of September.
The decision followed an international Aids conference in the east coast port city of Durban where the government took a barrage of criticism for its failure to implement a national treatment plan.
The team drew up the operational plan with the help of staff from the US-based William Jefferson Clinton Foundation and included visits to all nine of the country’s provinces to assess provincial plans and preparedness.
Said Mbewu: ”The process has gone smoothly.”
Earlier this month, Ira Magaziner, chairman of the Clinton Foundation’s Aids initiative, told reporters that if the cabinet approved the plan, it would be possible to introduce it almost immediately.
But he added: ”That did not mean all people in need of anti-retrovirals would get them straight away though.”
Magaziner said the plan would rather outline a ”roll-out week-by-week”. – Sapa