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US $1 billion needed to fight AIDS - Mkapa

    NAIROBI

    President Benjamin Mkapa said on Saturday, 30 June, that Tanzania needed US $1 billion a year to fight the HIV/AIDS epidemic. In an end-of-month address, he also said his government planned to make anti-retroviral (ARV) drugs available to all Tanzania’s estimated three million HIV/AIDS patients, AFP reported. “This is a very heavy burden for us, because the amount is equivalent to the government’s annual revenue collection,” the BBC quoted Mkapa. Tanzania has a GDP of US $9.3 billion, according to the BBC.

    Mkapa, who returned home on Friday, 29 June, from the UN special session on HIV/AIDS in New York, also urged other African countries and pharmaceutical companies to step up efforts to stop the spread of the disease. “We must now rise up to the challenge and [take] collective responsibility for saving ourselves and our society from imminent extinction,” he said.

    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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