Cost of AIDS drug plan to go public

The South African Ministry of Finance could soon make public the government's estimate for the cost of a national anti-AIDS drug plan, local newspaper Business Day reported. Finance Minister Trevor Manuel is expected to reveal the probable cost of the planned rollout during the release of his medium-term budget policy statement in parliament on Wednesday. In the annual national budget for 2003-04, an amount of almost US $434 million for these drugs was provisionally earmarked by the finance ministry, should the government decide to proceed with the plan. However, the cost of treatment and its effect on future budgets is expected to be significant and could run into millions of dollars more. While the cabinet has approved the national plan in principle, it still has to consider the report of a health department task team on an operational strategy for the rollout.