Pretoria/New York/Harare/London: South Africa's health minister is increasingly concerned at the cost of coping with Aids in the country with the world's largest number of HIV-positive citizens.
But in an interview marking World Aids Day today, Dr Aaron Motsoaledi said his government has no choice but to keep spending.
"If we stop anything, we will just reverse all our gains," he said, adding that if better decisions had been made and stronger action taken earlier, costs would be lower now.
Last year on the day devoted to taking stock of the fight against Aids, President Jacob Zuma gained worldwide praise by pledging an ambitious testing and treatment campaign and more vigorous efforts to stop the disease's spread.
Campaign
Motsoaledi is in charge of the campaign, and has been praised for his energy and openness by Aids activists who repeatedly clashed with a previous health minister who promoted beets and garlic over Aids drugs and questioned the link between the HIV virus and Aids.
Gail Eddy of the South African Institute of Race Relations, one of the country's oldest and most respected independent social research centres, said there are already signs of results that could be linked to a shift that began even before Zuma' announcement last year.
The institute points to a lower HIV rate among young South Africans, and gradual gains in life expectancy, to about 50. Still, an estimated 5.7 million people in this country of 50 million are infected with HIV, more than in any other country.
A report by an international team of experts commissioned by the South African government concluded that under the current Aids plan, $88 billion (Dh322.96 billion) will be spent over the next two decades, with the number of new infections falling gradually from 500,000 to about 350,000 annually.
The report outlined a more ambitious plan that would cost $102 billion over the same period, and bring the number of new infections down to under 200,000 a year.
The head of MTV's Aids charity was nervous about launching this year's World Aids Day campaign without a celebrity, but decided to put her faith in two personal tales told by unknown youngsters.
The music channel is airing an hour-long television documentary "Me, Myself and HIV", which follows the lives of 25-year-old US-college student Angelikah and 21-year-old aspiring musician Slim from Zambia. Both are living with HIV.
The US has launched a programme in Zimbabwe to encourage testing for HIV infection and the US ambassador, local musicians, broadcast personalities and soccer stars all took tests to publicize the occasion.
Alexio Kawara, one of the nation's most popular musicians, says Zimbabwean celebrities are leading the US programme launched on World Aids day to dispel fears over knowing one's HIV status.
