South African Minister Says "Flat Out" on AIDS Plan

South Africa's Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang said on Saturday she would work "flat out" to try to meet an end-of-September deadline for a plan to roll out antiretroviral drugs to people with AIDS. "What I'm confident of at the moment is that we are supposed to produce an implementation plan -- this is what the cabinet has asked me to do and we are going to work flat out," said Tshabalala-Msimang on the sidelines of a women's conference on AIDS in Johannesburg. "At the end of September we will go back to cabinet," she said. The minister declined to say whether she believed the deadline could be met. "I don't know -- this is a framework action plan... and I don't want to be caught in time frames." In a speech to hundreds of cheering and chanting women, the minister said that it is important not to lump people with fully developed AIDS in the same category as those with HIV. "We are going to muster all our energy, to do all we can, to prolong the gap between the two -- it is not necessary that people die of AIDS, we can manage HIV," she said.

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