New campaign in South Africa 'to encourage HIV and AIDS testing'
18/03/2010
A new campaign is about to be launched in South Africa hoping to encourage millions of people to test for HIV and AIDS.
It will be launched by health minister Dr Aaron Motsoaledi and will act as a precursor to the rolling out of new treatment protocols for the virus and for tuberculosis on April 1st, allAfrica.com reports.
The initiative has been labelled the HIV Counselling and Testing Campaign and will be implemented just after the Easter holidays.
It is possibly the most ambitious testing experiment "any country has ever had", the news provider claims, as it aims to have up to 15 million South Africans screened for the disease by June 2011.
Mr Motsoaledi said: "Our view as South Africa is that the mainstay of the fight against any disease is to prevent it from happening."
The country is hosting the Sport Relief mile in Cape Town on 21 March 2010, with proceeds going towards Child Welfare South Africa's programmes designed to combat the HIV and AIDS epidemic.
Written by John Curtis
