SA Health Minister's ARV program backed

South African Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, who has been the target of foreign-led calls for her resignation (Marketletter September 4), received an endorsement from the Washington DC, USA-based think-tank, the Hudson Institute.

Jeremiah Norris, the Institute's center for science in public policy director, writing in the South African Business Day newspaper described the criticism as based on unsustainable World Health Organization targets, including the failed "3 by 5" campaign to put three million people worldwide on antiretroviral drugs by 2005. Instead, he claims, the South African government has taken a "tortoise-like" approach by the end of 2005 the country was treating 99,000 patients, rising to about 140,000 at present.