Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi has unveiled the country’s largest ever HIV/Aids testing and counselling campaign.

The new multimillion rand project will kick off in April.

The minister said he hoped it would help government understand the pandemic better.

The initiative will cost more than R1.4bn.

Motsoaledi said the campaign was split into two parts with the testing and counselling being parts of phase one.

Phase two of the campaign is treatment based.

“The treatment measures will come into effect on the 1 April. There are 490 health centres who are accredited to provide ARV’s to South Africa. By the 1 April we will have added about 500 new centres,” said the minister.

(Edited by Danya Philander)