South Africa agrees to fund care for Aids victims

South Africa's government yesterday reversed its much-ridiculed policy by finally offering to treat its 5 million Aids sufferers through the health system, while jettisoning controversial beliefs about the disease held by President Thabo Mbeki.

An estimated 600 to 1,000 South Africans die every day from Aids-related complications and one-in-10 of the 45 million population suffers from it. But the government has been widely criticised for refusing to provide Aids medicine for sufferers, saying it would be too expensive and questioning the drugs' effectiveness.

The vast majority of South Africa's Aids suffers cannot afford to buy expensive retroviral drugs. More than 10 per cent of the country's population lives on less than 50 pence per day and 35 per cent live on less than £1 per day - and the only hope Aids victims have of long-term survival is to get free medicines through the health system.

Yesterday's cabinet decision has effectively ditched President Mbeki's policy of denial. In the past, he has supported "dissident" scientists, who query the link between HIV and Aids. He has recently withdrawn from public discussion of the disease.

"This is a watershed for victims of this disease," said David Harrison, who runs an Aids prevention project called LoveLife. "Mr Mbeki may repeat his opinions on Aids in the future, but it will no longer affect how the governments responds to this major health crisis."

Mr Mbeki recently caused outrage by denying knowing any victims of the disease.

"Personally, I don't know anybody who has died of Aids," he told an American journalist last September. Asked whether he knew anyone who was HIV-positive, he responded: "I really, honestly, don't know."

Prominent members of Mr Mbeki's African National Congress (ANC) party have died of Aids and his own spokesman, Parks Mankahlana, also died two years ago after a long struggle.

Yesterday's cabinet meeting agreed a plan submitted by Health minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang clearing the way for anti-retroviral drugs to be distributed. It may be some time before they become available, as the government needs to set up contracts with suppliers, train health care workers, and identify and upgrade treatment centres, especially in rural areas.

"There is still a long way to go," Ms Tshabalala-Msimang said. "I don't want to raise false hopes, but a decision has been made. There is hope."

With the help of the US-based William Jefferson Clinton Foundation, the health ministry drafted a national plan to distribute anti-retroviral drugs.

Provincial governments will ensure that at least one treatment centre in every local health district within a year, extending to one in every municipality in the next five. The government aims to treat 50,000 patients within the first year of the program.

The plan is expected to cost 296m rand (£26m) this year, growing to nearly 4.5bn rand (£400m) in 2007-8.

The UN Aids co-ordinator for South Africa, Mbulawa Mugabe, called it "a huge breakthrough for the country".

Aids activists at the nation's Treatment Action Campaign said they had been waiting for this day for five years. "This means that so many people that haven't had access to Aidsdrugs, that are dying every day, can finally get treatment," said Rukia Cornelius, its national executive secretary.