Region slow but tenacious in AIDS fight - UN

SOUTHERN AFRICA: Region slow but tenacious in AIDS fight - UN

JOHANNESBURG, 17 Sep 2004 (PLUSNEWS) - Southern African countries are showing determination to overcome HIV/AIDS, but many have started too late and hurdles remain, Stephen Lewis, the UN Special Envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa, has said.

Briefing reporters at the UN Headquarters in New York on Thursday, Lewis said countries like South Africa were slow to embrace a treatment programme, while others were overwhelmed by logistical, as seemed to be the case in Tanzania.

He suggested that current anti-AIDS programmes would have been more effective had they been implemented several years ago.

"But there is an almost universal, Pavlovian reflex - for example, in Botswana, Rwanda, Zambia, Malawi, Kenya and Namibia - to demolish the obstacles and get pervasive treatment underway," Lewis added.

[ENDS]

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