New start for hundreds needing AIDS drugs

American talk show host Oprah Winfrey has donated US $100,000 to the Ithembalabantu (Zulu for 'people's hope') clinic, which provides free AIDS treatment in South Africa's KwaZulu-Natal province. The clinic, situated in Durban's Umlazi township, is a partnership between local and US-based NGOs, the Network of AIDS Communities in South Africa and the AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF). According to an AHF statement, they expect to scale up anti-AIDS treatment to 1,000 patients, who are on a waiting list of more than 3,000. Michael Weinstein, the president of AHF, said there was too much talk globally about what needed to be done to counter the HIV/AIDS pandemic, but very little was effectively being done.