SA to spend more money on Aids

The South African government announced plans this week to spend more than a quarter of a billion dollars over the next three years in order to provide an extra half a million people with Aids medication.

Trevor Manuel, the country's minister for finance, said that South Africa would spend $274 million (£140 million) by 2011 in order to double the amount of people receiving treatment for the deadly virus, bringing the total close to 920,000.

The plans were unveiled as part of Mr Manuel's new Budget Review, which also placed a great emphasis on fighting drug-resistant strains of tuberculosis (TB), supporting extended hospitalisation and treatment for the disease.

"Additional funding should allow 500,000 more people access to treatment in addition to the 418,000 already on treatment, as well as increasing the numbers of people tested, and expanding a range of prevention programmes," the review read.

In South Africa, HIV/Aids and drug-resistant TB have become an increasing problem. South Africa has some 5.4 million people with the Aids virus, the most of any country in the world. Everyday, nearly 1,000 people are infected with the disease and another 1,000 die from it.

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