Pretoria - Over 80 health facilities in the North West will in the next three months implement the new and up-scaled HIV and AIDS prevention and treatment plan.
The provincial department of Health and Social Development said the province is currently assessing 49 new sites to add onto the existing 39 sites currently offering ARV treatment.
The new sites will increase the number of people on ARVs from 83 770 to 132 081.
The province also has 28 community based organisations and 90 clinics accredited as part of its down referral programme.
"These sites refer stable patients to community based organisations and public facilities where quality Comprehensive HIV and AIDS Care, Management and Treatment can be continued thereby ensuring monitoring of drug adherence and tracing of patients who default treatment," the department said.
The new implementation plan, announced by President Jacob Zuma during World Aids Day last year, will see all patients with both TB and HIV receiving treatment with anti-retrovirals if their CD4 count is 350 or less, as opposed to the current situation where treatment is administered only if an individual's CD 4 count is at 200.
The new plan will also see TB and HIV and AIDS being treated under one roof.
Children under the age of one will receive treatment if they test positive and initiating treatment will not be determined by the number of CD cells.
The new plan will also allow pregnant HIV positive women with a CD4 count of 350 or with symptoms regardless of CD4 count to have access to treatment.
On Sunday, Zuma will launch the national roll-out of government's new and up-scaled HIV and AIDS prevention and treatment plan.
Among the highlights of the new implementation plan include voluntary and public HIV and AIDS testing, which will be led by cabinet members and other leaders from broader society.
The President had made a call that every South African should know his or her HIV status, and he took his own HIV test on the 8th of April to promote the testing campaign.
A further shift from current policy - the new plan sees a move from voluntary counselling and testing (VCT) to HIV Counselling and Testing (HCT), a service delivery model that offers testing to all patients at the entry points in all health institutions - a model that hopes to get up to 15 million people tested by June 2011.
