Money has been given to South Africa to buy one billion condoms, in a country where more people die of HIV and Aids-related sickness than anywhere else in the world.
International Development Minister Gareth Thomas told an emergency meeting in Westminster that £1 million will be donated to the country, which is hosting the football World Cup finals this summer.
The Department for International Development called the meeting to try to improve efforts to provide people with universal access to HIV prevention, treatment and care programmes. A pledge to do this by 2015 is said to have gone off the tracks.
People representing African nations with endemic HIV infection, financial donors, activists and drugs corporations all attended the meeting.
G8 countries were called on to note the catastrophic consequences of not paying out the cash they promised to nations to fight the virus and to live up to promises they made to the Global Fund for HIV, TB and Malaria.
As many as 1,500 people get infected with HIV and around 1,000 people die AIDS-related deaths every day in South Africa.
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