South Africa Awards Contracts to Seven Pharmaceutical Companies

South Africa's government has awarded three-year contracts to seven pharmaceutical companies to produce antiretroviral drugs for distribution in public health facilities across the country, Reuters reports. The South African Cabinet in November 2003 approved an HIV/AIDS treatment plan that aims to provide antiretroviral drugs to 1.2 million people -- or roughly 25 percent of the country's HIV-positive population -- at low or no cost by 2008.

Medical News Today (http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/medicalnews.php?newsid=20856)