The World Health Organisation (WHO) plans to provide anti-retroviral drugs to 150 000 Aids patients in Ethiopia by 2005, a WHO official said on Thursday.
The distribution of the drugs comes under the WHO’s ”3 by 5” initiative, which plans to provide such drugs to three million patients affected by the disease in poor countries by 2005.
The drugs would be made available for free or at lower prices, Dr Endalemaw Abera, national HIV/Aids officer with the WHO, said on Thursday.
He said an emergency mission and an international expert to facilitate the treatment programme will arrive in Ethiopia shortly from the WHO African regional office in Brazzaville, Congo, and from the organisation’s headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland.
More than 2,2-million people in Ethiopia have Aids, meaning the country has one of the worst infection rates in the world. — Sapa-DPA