Egyptian HIV/AIDS Patients To Receive Free Antiretroviral Drugs
Egyptian HIV/AIDS patients will begin receiving free antiretroviral drugs as part of a new governmental initiative, Health Minister Mohammed Awad Tag Eddin said on Wednesday, AFP/Yahoo! News reports. The announcement coincided with start of a national campaign to raise awareness about HIV/AIDS, which was launched despite the relatively small number of HIV-positive people in the country, Eddin said, according to AFP/Yahoo! News. Two out of every one million people test HIV-positive each year, and there are no more than 650 HIV-positive people in Egypt, according to Eddin, AFP/Yahoo! News reports. In the mid-1990s, the Egyptian Ministry of Health and Population established the country's first HIV/AIDS center and a telephone hotline for patients after previously denying the existence of the disease in the country, according to AFP/Yahoo! News (AFP/Yahoo! News, 7/7).
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