South Africa: AIDS Group Says Drug Delays Costing Lives

South Africa's most influential AIDS pressure group the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) slammed the government on Tuesday for delays in rolling out a planned anti-retroviral (ARV) drug program. Amid mounting pressure from home and abroad, President Thabo Mbeki's government agreed last November to give sufferers anti-retroviral drugs which can prolong life and stave off full-blown AIDS in people with the HIV virus that causes it. The long-awaited announcement was universally welcomed after years of controversial debate about the science of HIV/AIDS, but now activists are unhappy about further delays.