AIDS treatment in Southern Africa is about to explode with seven countries in the region accelerating access to antiretroviral drugs. "Very poor countries have shown they are capable of doing effective treatment in the public sector and that they would be ready to scale up rapidly," said the UN special envoy for HIV/Aids in Africa, Stephen Lewis. Speaking after last week's international Aids research conference in Paris, the executive director of the UN Global Fund for the Treatment of Aids, Malaria and Tuberculosis, Richard Feachem, said that Africa was on the threshold of an explosion in treatment.