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SOUTH AFRICA: NGOs worried over AIDS treatment delay

[This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations]

JOHANNESBURG, 5 August (PLUSNEWS) - AIDS organisations have expressed disappointment over the delay in the rollout of anti-AIDS drugs in South Africa's Limpopo province.

NGOs claimed their requests for speedy drug delivery seemed to have fallen on deaf ears and antiretrovirals purchased for the rollout were already expiring.

The South African Broadcasting Corporation quoted Pholokgolo Ramathwala, spokesman for the AIDS NGO, Treatment Action Campaign, as saying: "We also understand that there are medicines worth R5 million [just over US $800,000] which are kept in this province. We'd like to know ... what's happening to those medicines."

However, the provincial department of health and welfare refuted the claims, saying: "It's not about when you start, it's about the level of services that you will be rendering to save lives."

[ENDS]

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