Zimbabwe Plans To Increase Number of People With Access to Antiretrovirals to 160,000
Zimbabwe by the end of 2007 plans to increase the number of people with access to antiretroviral drugs to 160,000, compared with 50,000 last year, Owen Mugurungi, head of the Zimbabwean government's HIV/AIDS unit, said on Monday, Zimbabwe's Herald reports (Herald, 1/1). More than 300,000 HIV-positive people living in the country need access to antiretrovirals, according to the government. Some of the antiretrovirals will come from the Zimbabwean drug company Varichem, and UNICEF will provide the rest to the National AIDS Council, Mugurungi said (AFP/Yahoo! News, 1/1). The funding for the drugs will be provided by Zimbabwe's AIDS levy, which aims to raise money for HIV/AIDS programs, as well as by the Ministry of Health and the Global Fund To Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, according to Mugurungi. He did not say how much money the initiative required (Herald, 1/1).
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