South Africa is promising to increase the availability of AIDS drugs and expand education and prevention programmes - a dramatic shift in a country where officials were earlier this year promoting beetroots and lemons as treatments.

Deputy President Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka has stressed in recent meetings that the government now believes unequivocally that HIV causes AIDS - something once questioned by the president - and that antiretroviral drugs (ARVs) must be at the core of its response.

"The beetroot and all that lemon stuff is out the window. These guys are now serious about getting it right," the Washington Post quotes a government advisor as saying.

Almost one in three adults in South Africa have the HIV virus that causes AIDS, and every day 1,000 people become infected, reports USA Today in an article on the disease's devastating economic impact.

"This is a sea change. We're not across the ocean yet, but now the government is sailing in the right direction," Mark Heywood, director of the AIDS Law Project in Johannesburg, is quoted as saying in Britain's Guardian newspaper.

South African government officials have caused international outrage in recent years over a series of controversial statements. In 2000, President Thabo Mbeki queried the link between the HIV virus and AIDS. Not until late 2003, following a court ruling, did the government reluctantly introduce a public programme making ARVs available to patients. That's two years later than its neighbour Botswana.

Yet despite having one of the biggest public treatment programmes in the world, only 200,000 South Africans, of an estimated 800,000 in need, are receiving government drugs.

In May, this year, former Deputy President Jacob Zuma caused anger during his trial for rape when he said he had taken a shower after unprotected sex to avoid catching the disease.

And in August, Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang sparked uproar at an AIDS conference in Toronto by advocating a diet of beetroot, lemons and garlic as treatment.

Signs of a shift in policy have been evident during recent meetings Mlambo-Ngcuka has held with AIDS activist groups, who up to now have been largely ignored.

"There's been a switch, the most hopeful switch in years, over the past four of five weeks," Francois Venter, head of the Southern African HIV Clinicians Society, is quoted as saying in the Washington Post article.

Firm targets are to be set over the coming months for expanding prevention programmes and the availability of ARV. A five-year government plan is due to be released on World AIDS day on 1 December.

"We must tighten up so that ARV drugs are more accessible, especially to the poor. Education and prevention of HIV infection must be scaled up," Mlambo-Ngcuka told a conference of health professionals, church leaders and labour officials, reported by the Guardian.

In a country where the number of deaths from the disease is estimated to reach 5.4 million by 2015, compared with 1.8 million at the end of this year, according to figures quoted by USA Today, this is certainly a welcome policy shift.

Let's hope that Tshabalala-Msimang (AKA 'Dr Beetroot'), who is reported to be maintaining some role in the nation's AIDS policy, is privy to a few of the planned education programmes.