President Jacob Zuma has announced a new plan to expand treatment to HIV-positive babies and pregnant women; this plan has the potential to save thousands of lives, according to an article by the Associated Press.

The new policy marks a dramatic shift from their former president whose treatment policies led to more than 300,000 premature deaths, according to a Harvard study.

The policy states that HIV-infected pregnant women are to be given drugs earlier and while breast-feeding. They hope that by treating the infants the survival rates would also improve.

“At another moment in our history, in another context, the liberation movement observed that the time comes in the life of any nation when there remain only two choices: submit or fight,” Zuma said. “That time has now come in our struggle to overcome AIDS. Let us declare now, as we declared then, that we shall not submit.”

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