The department of heath is ready to allow all people with CD4 counts of 350 and below to get antiretroviral medication, the Director General of Health, Dr Precious Matsoso announced yesterday.

At present, only pregnant women and people with HIV and tuberculosis can get ARVs with a CD4 count of 350 while everyone else has to wait until their immunity drops to a CD4 count of 200.

Matsoso was addressing a meeting of top scientists at a meeting of the Centre for the AIDS programme of Research in SA (Caprisa) in Durban yesterday.

Meanwhile, Professor Salim Abdool Karim,  Deputy Vice-Chancellor of the University of KwaZulu-Natal, told the Caprisa meeting that, on the 30th anniversary of the discovery of AIDS, the world has ‘€œa much fuller toolkit to deal with HIV prevention than a year ago’€,Professor Abdool Karim said five recent research results had the potential to transform HIV/AIDS prevention if they could be translated into policy.

In the latest trial of couples where one partner was HIV positive and the other negative, if the HIV positive partner was on antiretroviral medication, their partner was protected from infection by a massive 96 percent.

Male circumcision offered 54 percent protection from HIV, while a study of gay men found that an ARV called Truvada taken before sex could prevent HIV by 44 percent.

A trial in Tanzania found that if sexually transmitted infections were treated, this reduced HIV transmission by 42 percent.

Finally, a year ago Caprisa found that a vaginal gel containing the ARV tenofovir could reduce HIV infection by 39 percent.

‘€œHow do we go forward to actually change the course of the epidemic at a community level, using these results?’€ he asked the meeting international scientists who have convened to evaluate Caprisa’€™s scientific programme.

Abdool Karim, a co-director of Caprisa, said the organisation was particularly concerned about the very high levels of HIV among young women and its research was geared towards this group.

Meanwhile, Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan appealed to the meeting to assist in pressurising the pharmaceutical industry to ensure that developing countries get cheaper antiretroviral medication, said

‘€œGovernment has devoted more money to AIDS and is prepared to devote even more, but we need to ensure better value for money,’€ said Gordhan.

‘€œFor example, we saved billions of rands in [awarding] the recent antiretroviral tender by taking a different approach and through more interaction between the Treasury and health department,’€ said Gordhan.

‘€œBut we need people like you to put more pressure on the pharmaceutical industry,’€ said Gordhan, ahead of the SA national AIDS conference, which starts on Tuesday. ‘€“