Voice of America - March 24, 2004
Joe De Capua
Washington

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South Africa’s Health Ministry has announced it will release funds in April to allow nine provinces to buy AIDS-fighting drugs. That means the anti-retroviral drugs will be distributed months earlier than scheduled. The AIDS activist group Treatment Action Campaign praises the move.

The group had said that measures existed to allow the medications to be purchased on an interim basis prior to the planned rollout of the full drug program later this year.

Fatima Hassan is an attorney for the TAC. Ms. Hassan told English to Africa reporter Joe De Capua that the government’s action probably results from the group’s recent threat to file a lawsuit.

She says, “Well, we think it clearly is. We think that the minister has capitulated. She’s basically provided the go-ahead for provinces to get drugs…and to start applying people who are in need of treatment with ARV medicines.”

Ms. Hassan explains how the health minister will purchase the drugs. She says, “The minister has indicated that she will use an interim procurement process where she will get an interim supply of medicines for people who are most in need in conjunction with the formal tender process.” The formal process does not call for the ARV’s to be purchased until at least June or July.

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