The movie star's Elizabeth Taylor AIDS Foundation earmarked the cash for the purchase of life-saving anti-retroviral (ARV) drugs for patients the Global Immunity's Ithembalabantu Clinic in the Kwazulu-Natal city of Durban.

The donation will allow an estimated 100 additional patients to receive ARV treatment for one year, the US-based AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF) which runs the clinic said.

"I wish to thank Elizabeth Taylor for her undying support of our efforts to provide these important life-saving drugs to a population in desperate need," said AHF president Michael Weinstein.

"This donation puts us one step closer to providing ARV treatment to hundreds of thousands of people who desperately need it," he added.

The violet-eyed former screen goddess Taylor, 72, has been an avid campaigner against the scourge of AIDS, that is now ravaging South Africa particularly badly, since her friend and co-star Rock Hudson died of the disease in 1985.

She earlier donated 50,000 to the AIDS Healthcare Foundation's Treatment=Life campaign to provide HIV/AIDS drugs and tests for people in Los Angeles who could not afford the costly treatment.

UN health officials estimate that more than 20 percent of adults in South Africa are HIV positive and in urgent need of anti-retroviral treatment to save their lives.

TERRA.WIRE