CAPE TOWN, Aug 10 (AFP) - South Africa's Health Minister, Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, has warned that a number of questions must be answered before an AIDS treatment programme can be put into place, a media report said Sunday.
Tshabalala-Msimang told the Sunday Independent newspaper that a detailed operational plan to make antiretroviral drugs available to HIV and AIDS sufferers by the end of September had not yet been "adequately costed".
"I can't say we have a roll-out, because the plan has not been adequately costed," she said.
The outstanding questions are to be answered by the health ministry by the end of this month, when the cabinet will again scrutinise all aspects of the plan before giving a final go-ahead.
The cabinet is still grappling with the constitutionality of initial pilot-site roll-outs and the fact that some of the most AIDS-ridden communities in South Africa are those with the least adequate infrastructure, the newspaper said.
The constitution would require that all people suffering from AIDS have equal access to treatement.
The cabinet has sent a list of outstanding questions to the Clinton Foundation, launched by former US president Bill Clinton, which has offered assistance with the roll-out.
Tshabalala-Msimang stressed the need for proper infrastructure, as well as for patients to comply with thorough treatment programmes.
She said 12 different antiretroviral regimes needed "to be available at all times", due to the mutation of the virus, as well as the problem of patient non-compliance, which increases resistance to medication.
Proper nutrition was also an intergral part of treatment, she said.
The South African government has thus far avoided implementing an AIDS treatment programme, despite a UN claim that nearly 1,000 people die each day among a total of nearly five million South Africans who are infected with HIV or suffer from full-blown AIDS.
On Friday, however, the cabinet instructed the health ministry to develop a detailed operational plan to make antiretroviral drugs available to HIV and AIDS sufferers by the end of September.
The decision follows an international AIDS conference last week in the east coast city of Durban where the government took a barrage of criticism for its failure to implement a national treatment plan.
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