Government launches HIV and Aids Treatment roll out plans

20 April 2010

President Jacob Zuma will on the 25th of April launch the roll out of government’s new HIV and AIDS prevention and treatment measures that were announced on World Aids Day on the 1st of December last year.

The policy changes announced in December included the following:

* All children under one year of age will get treatment if they test positive, and that initiating treatment will not be determined by the level of CD cells.
* All patients with both TB and HIV will get treatment with anti-retrovirals if their CD4 count is 350 or less and that TB and HIV/Aids would now be treated under one roof.
* All pregnant HIV positive women with a CD4 count of 350 or with symptoms regardless of CD4 count would have access to treatment.

To take the response to HIV forward, government will also launch a campaign to mobilise all South Africans to get tested for HIV, also announced on World Aids Day last year.

The President had made a call that every South African should know his or her HIV status, and he took his own HIV test on the 8th of April to promote the testing campaign.

Details of the launch are as follows:
Venue: Natalspruit Hospital, Ekurhuleni
Time: 9h00
Date: 25 April 2010
Issued by: The Presidency
20 April 2010
Source: The Presidency (http://www.thepresidency.gov.za)