Share & more
Africa's largest drug manufacturer, Aspen Pharmacare, says five times more South Africans are using its antiretrovirals (ARVs) than just over a year ago.
Aspen director Stephen Saad confirmed that the number of local patients using ARVs grew from 20,000 a year ago to 100,000 at present, with an additional 200,000 patients in the rest of sub-Saharan Africa accessing its life-prolonging anti-AIDS drugs.
Sixteen months ago the firm won 58 percent of the South African government's ARV tender, worth almost US$1.7 billion in turnover over three years.
Although strides had been made in South Africa's ARV rollout, HIV/AIDS activists have charged that the treatment figures quoted by the government - 134,000 by May this year - were inflated.
Fatima Hassan, an attorney with the Johannesburg-based AIDS Law Project, told the Mail and Guardian newspaper that the number was more likely between 90,000 and 100,000.
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