JOHANNESBURG - South Africa, grappling with one of the highest AIDS caseloads in the world, has awarded contracts to seven companies to speed up the slow roll-out of free anti-retroviral drugs to sufferers, reports said Friday.
The contracts are valid until 2007, the SAFM radio said.
The health ministry said in a statement late Thursday that the government had "awarded the tender to supply anti-retroviral drugs to public health facilities countrywide."
"The successful suppliers and provincial health procurement officials will meet every three months. This is a mandatory meeting to allow the provinces and suppliers to plan adequately and meet the demand for ARV`s at public health facilities," it said.
The ministry said the first delivery of the drugs would start in "six to eight weeks."
The companies which won the tenders include Aspen Pharmacare, GlaxoSmithKline and MSD, the local arm of Merck`s.
South Africa has the highest HIV/AIDS caseload in the world, with 5.3 million people, or one in five adults, living with HIV and AIDS, according to UN figures.
President Thabo Mbeki, who attracted controversy some years ago for allegedly questioning the link between HIV and AIDS, recently declared in his state of the nation address that his government`s plan to fight AIDS was "the best in the world."
The South African president last year said some 53,000 people would be receiving free anti-retroviral drugs from 113 state-accredited health centres by March this year.
However, that target has not been met and AIDS activists estimate that only 20,000 people are receiving free ARVs.
03/04/2005 09:36 GMT