Free AIDS treatment sites to double

Nigeria plans in the next three months to double its number of anti-AIDS treatment sites to 66, the National Action Committee on AIDS (NACA) announced recently. This comes just a week after the government decided to scrap a US $8 fee previously paid by HIV-positive people accessing antiretrovirals through the existing facilities. An estimated two thirds of Nigeria's 40 million people live on less than $1 a day, and AIDS charities had long argued that the mandatory fee put the drugs beyond the reach of many. "We plan to add an additional 33 centres in the first quarter ... There will be greater equity. We are not yet in a position to have universal access, but the fact that poor people will now be able to access drugs is a major progress," NACA chairman Babatunde Osotimehin told Reuters.