JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - AIDS sufferers and activists warmly welcomed a breakthrough step in South Africa toward anti-retroviral treatment for all, but said delays leading up to it had cost lives.
Long criticized for failing to tackle the world's highest AIDS case-load head-on, President Thabo Mbeki's government bowed to a growing clamour for drug treatment on Friday, saying it aimed to draw up a plan by the end of September for national distribution of anti-retroviral drugs which can fight AIDS.
"It's wonderful news," said Sibongile Mafata, coordinator of the only hospice in the sprawling Soweto township near Johannesburg where some 80 to 90 percent of the 400 people being treated by the donation-funded hospice have HIV/AIDS.
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=571&ncid=751&e=1&u=/nm/20030809/hl_nm/aids_safrica_dc
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