South Africa Backslides on ARVs Treatment

Following South African drug regulators' refusal to issue binding advice on the efficacy of controversial vitamin-based "medicines" for HIV/AIDS, health minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang has defended the products. The comments again question the efficacy of standard antiretrovirals (ARVs), as statistics appear to show that the country is failing to meet its own targets for treatment of sufferers. In November 2003, South Africa set an initial target of public sector treatment for 53,000 people by March 2004.

Further, Tshabalala-Msimang claimed that adverse reactions to ARV drugs have been under-reported, and the minister was also unable to account for an unexplained rise in the numbers receiving ARV treatment from 28,000 to 42,000. Despite the government's refusal to "chase numbers" on the issue, the World Health Organisation has recently indicated that South Africa's handling of the disease could be a major contributor to the failure of its global ARV treatment target, which envisaged 3mn sufferers in poor countries taking the drugs by the end of 2005.