Uk to give £15m to fund S Africa Aids fight
Monday, World AIDS Day, sees the start of what many hope will prove a new era in the fight against HIV/AIDS in South Africa. Barbara Hogan, the health minister appointed in September to help shake up a health service in crisis, is being given UK political, as well as financial support.
The minister, Ivan Lewis, told me that South Africa has one the most severe HIV/AIDS epidemics in the world, with 800 people a day still dying as a result.
The UK announcement comes in the week that the AIDS policies of the former South African president Thabo Mbeki's government were deemed directly responsible for the deaths of 330,000 people in the country. A team from quantified the effect of Mbeki's stance on HIV/AIDS.
