According a leading scientist within five years it was possible in South Africa to stop AIDS by using anti-retroviral treatments (ARVs) and mass screening.

According to Dr Brian William who is at the South African Centre for Epidemiological Modeling and Analysis (Sacema) in Stellenbosch, yearly cost of administering drugs to HIV-positive people who are about six million would be 2-3 billion dollars.

If the disease is detected early then transmission could be prevented by timely treatment. Only 30 per cent people get the drug at present.

According to Williams who has worked in the field of HIV since long now an effective vaccine was still far away.

"The tragedy is that the disease continues unabated. The only real success story is the development of these extremely effective drugs that keep people alive and reduce their viral load by up to 2,000 times. They become close to non-infectious,” he said.

Williams also argued that most people have already infected those who would have been infected otherwise also by the time they started ART.

"We’ve been using drugs to save lives, but not stop the infection. It’s time to look beyond that," he said.

Everyone in South Africa would be on ARV within five years if clinical trials started in time.