Simon Zwane said the programme kicked off in five major hospitals including the mammoth Chris Hani Baragwanath in the southwestern township of Soweto and Johannesburg General Hospital.

"We are sure that the roll-out has started smoothly in all five hospitals," Zwane told the SAPA news agency.

The department hopes to treat about 100 new cases of HIV/AIDS each week, and is targeting treating a total of some 10,000 people at 23 sites in Gauteng, where Johannesburg and Pretoria are located, by next year.

The UNAIDS agency estimates that South Africa had 5.3 million people infected with HIV and AIDS at the end of 2002 -- the highest number in the world.

In mid-November, South Africa's cabinet approved the outline of a plan to provide ARVs for those infected with HIV/AIDS, after several court battles between government and AIDS lobby groups, who wanted free treatment for all sufferers.

Earlier this month, the influential Treatment Action Campaignthreatened to go to court again in an effort to get the government -- who in the past voiced suspicion over the safety of ARV treatment -- to speed up the roll-out of ARV's.

Mark Heywood, a spokesman for the TAC, told AFP the demand had been dropped "for the time being" following Thursday's roll-out of ARVs in Gauteng.

"We dropped the court action to get drugs to be supplied to facilities that are ready to do so for the time being," said Heywood.

"We welcome today's roll-out and urge the Gauteng government to do more to make sure that sites are ready to start treating more people."

"At the moment the numbers are far too small," Heywood said.

Gauteng is the third province to provide ARV treatment after the Western Cape and KwaZulu-Natal provinces.

TERRA.WIRE