Aids wrangle apparently over
2003-02-02 22:38
Special Report
The South African government has announced a joint venture to reduce the cost of anti-retroviral drugs with a Swiss company.
Durban - The months of wrangling over KwaZulu-Natal's application to the UN for over $70 million to fight the spread of HIV/Aids in the province are apparently at an end.
Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang caused uproar last year when she wanted the UN's World Fund for the control of the spread of Aids, tuberculosis and malaria to turn down KwaZulu-Natal's application because it was not channelled through her department.
This led to several groups insisting that the minister resign and a threatened lawsuit by the Treatment Action Campaign.
At the time, Tshabalala-Msimang insisted that the application by KwaZulu-Natal, which was already getting the lion's share of the South African allocation, would sour relationships with the rest of Africa.
After talks between the World Fund and the Department of Health in KwaZulu-Natal, the South African National Aids Council has approved an amended application by the province.
A spokesperson for Deputy President Jacob Zuma, chairman of the National Aids Council, said KwaZulu-Natal will have to send a new application to the World Fund when the next round of applications are considered later this year.
The wrangling over the application by the Enhanced Care Initiative is over, Lakela Kaunda, spokesperson for Zuma, said.
She said the amended application has good prospects because both the National Aids Council and Zuma support it.
They also negotiated the amendments with the World Fund, Kaunda said.
Meanwhile, the National Aids Council, the highest advisory body on HIV/Aids to the South African government, has been changed into a trust fund and all applications to, and donations by, the World Fund will have to be channelled through this body.
This comes after civil society insisted that the council operate
independently from the Health Departments, Kaunda said.
Until now the council has been operating from the Department of Health.
- Beeld