NextBillion - An Initiative of the William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan

Friday, March 4, 2016

South Africa wants anti-retroviral drug suppliers to allocate some of their products to a new state-owned pharmaceutical firm, Ketlaphela, a government official said on Friday, part of plans to tackle the country’s AIDS problem.

South African health authorities set up Ketlaphela last year to help to cut the cost of these drugs which are needed to treat more than 2.7 million people.

The estimated overall HIV prevalence rate is 11.2 percent of the total South African population, according to government figures, with more than 6 million people living with the disease in 2015, among the heaviest case loads in the world.

Ketlaphela is looking at eventually establishing its own drug manufacturing plant and also wants to introduce Ketlaphela-branded medicines by 2017.