Health officials in Papua New Guinea are hoping to be able to start treating people infected with HIV when they are still very healthy.
The manager of the STI/HIV/AIDS programme says about 12-thousand of the 16-thousand people needing anti-retroviral therapy or ART are receiving it through government funding.
The T-cell count is a measure of the extent of the infection and Dr Nick Dala says at present only people whose count is 350 or under qualify for ART.
But he says his technical team is meeting tomorrow to discuss beginning treatment when the count is at 500 and people are still well.
"If they all agree then we will put in a submission to the department as a policy then the senior executive members of the health ministry if they approve that by next year we should be starting treatment on 500."
Dr Nick Dala says to keep infection rates under control government and aid donor funding must remain constant.
