For those of you who don't know me personally, I received my Bachelor's Degree in International Relations and wrote my thesis on South African Foreign Policy, so this peaked my interest today:

"All South African babies under the age of one will be treated if they test HIV-positive, President Jacob Zuma has announced in a major policy overhaul."

After a highly criticized HIV policy during the Mbeki administration, President Zuma is taking steps to amend the country's track record and improve the peoples' health.

According to this article from the BBC "Each year 59,000 babies are born with HIV in a country where 5.2 million people live with the virus," with the new plan, Zuma intends to make anti-retroviral drugs more widely available to children and pregnant women who test positive. South Africa has an astoundingly high rate of this disease, in fact, the highest in the world, so the announcement today is a long overdue response to a growing and devastating issue in the country, better late than never.

And if that's not good enough, the US has pledged $120m to help South Africa buy more anti-retrovirals, after a request for funds from Pretoria.

Since the apartheid South Africa has seen great leaders and tremendous advancements in civil rights, liberties and cultural and national growth. Like most African nations (most nations in the world in fact), growth does not come without growing pains, and South Africa has had its fair share of those too. 

This initiative sounds ambitious, and far less painful than promising. Nothing ventured, nothing gained; go for it Zuma, do something good.