This is the VOA Special English Health Report, from voaspecialenglish.com | http South Africa plans to test fifteen million people for HIV by June of next year. That is almost one-third of its population. South Africa has the most people living with HIV of any nation. The number of infected men, women and children is estimated at more than five and a half million — or eleven percent of the population. President Jacob Zuma launched the testing campaign on April twenty-fifth in Johannesburg. He announced the results of his latest blood test for HIV He said the results in April, like the three earlier ones, were negative for the HIV virus. He said he was sharing the results to support openness and understanding. The country’s former president, Thabo Mbeki, was known for the unaggressive way his government dealt with AIDS. He questioned whether HIV even caused the disease. The new testing and counseling campaign started at a single location in each of South Africa’s nine provinces in April. The program will be expanded every two months until fifty-two health centers are offering the service. The government says it will also expand treatment and support services. Francois Venter is a senior director in the Reproductive Health and HIV Research Unit at the University of Witwatersrand. He says the testing campaign may put additional stress on the health system, but that will show where the weaknesses are. He says knowing which areas of the system are going to cause future …
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