The plan would make Botswana one of a half-dozen countries in Africa to develop programs to make AIDS drugs widely available to its citizens. The full treatment we hope to have by the end of the year.
Several obstacles remain to the treatment, however.
Botswana needs to upgrade its health care infrastructure to ensure it can deliver and monitor the complex regime of AIDS medications, Mogae said. Mogae, who did not provide a total cost estimate for providing the drugs, said Botswana needs to buy the medications at affordable prices. Botswana has discussed with several pharmaceutical companies their offers to reduce prices for key AIDS medications to the developing world, but even with those discounts the drugs were too expensive, he said. However, Mogae said he hopes to convince major pharmaceutical companies to further lower their prices. Uganda , Rwanda , Senegal and Ivory Coast are among countries in Africa that already have reached agreements to lower the costs of AIDS drugs.