Free drugs for HIV-positive in 2005

Uganda will provide some 60,000 HIV-positive people with free anti-AIDS drugs from 2005, the Minister of State for Health, Mike Mukula has said. During a recent press conference in the capital, Kampala, Mukula said HIV/AIDS had become a threat to the country's security and economy because it had affected the most productive part of the population. The minister said 2.2 million Ugandans were living with HIV/AIDS, while an estimated 120,000 were in the advanced stages of AIDS infection, according to a local newspaper, The Monitor. Uganda has achieved remarkable success in in tackling the pandemic, cutting HIV infection rates from 30 percent in 1990 to about 5 percent at present.