South Africa ? South Africa’s finance minister said Wednesday the government will spend more than a quarter of a billion dollars over the next three years to double the number of people receiving AIDS medication.

Trevor Manuel, presenting his ministry’s budget, said South Africa would spend an additional $274 million by 2011 to allow an extra half a million people with the AIDS virus to access antiretroviral treatment. That would bring the total to about 900,000.

Mark Heywood of the Aids Law Project welcomed Manuel’s new spending plan but estimated that even with the additional money, about 500,000 people in need of treatment in 2011 still would not receive it.