South Africa has announced that the number of people becoming infected with HIV in the country is slowing down.

Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang said the authorities were confident that infection rates were now stabilising and she believed South Africa had seen the worst of the crisis.

I think the worst is over but we cannot rest on our laurels

South African health minister

Health Ministry figures show that the figure of new HIV infections for 2001 is likely to be around 40,000 - down on previous years.

South Africa has the highest number of people with HIV or Aids in the world, with one in nine people carrying the virus.

The BBC's Martin Plaut says that because HIV takes about eight years to develop into Aids, the number of people dying from the disease is projected to rise for some years to come.

Stabilisation

Ms Tshabalala-Msimang said around 4.74 million people had been infected by the end of 2001 compared with 4.7m the previous year.

Numbers dying of the disease will rise for some years more

"Although we see a slight increase, statistically this increase is not significant and we can confidently say that the prevalence rate has stabilised," she said.

"I think the worst is over but we cannot rest on our laurels. We have to send a message of hope."

The data are projections based on a study of 17,000 women who visited ante-natal clinics in October of last year.

Independent analysts say that, while the practice of using such statistics to project national figures corresponds to World Health Organisation guidelines, further studies are needed.

The latest fall in figures comes a month after the South African Government announced its commitment to the widespread distribution of the anti-retroviral drug Nevirapine, which it had previously argued was dangerous.

It has said it hopes to provide the drug across the country by December.