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Rural eastern Cape AIDS treatment reports success

    JOHANNESBURG

    An anti-AIDS treatment initiative launched two years ago in South Africa's Eastern Cape province, could soon reach every HIV-positive person in need of antiretrovirals in the rural town of Lusikisiki.

    According to Dr TC Thomas, the superintendent of the local St Elizabeth Hospital, the programme was just 400 patients short of its 1,500 treatment target.

    "If we can achieve this here, the whole country can achieve even more. Let us be a light for others by saving our own lives," Health-e, a local online news service, quoted Thomas as saying.

    The programme, which was initiated by international NGO, Medicins Sans Frontieres, the provincial health department and the Nelson Mandela Foundation, has been hailed as the largest rural treatment effort in the country.

    This article was produced by IRIN News while it was part of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Please send queries on copyright or liability to the UN. For more information: https://shop.un.org/rights-permissions

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