London - South Africa cannot afford drugs to fight HIV/Aids partly because it needs submarines to deter attacks from nations such as the US, Health Minister Dr Manto Tshabalala-Msimang said.

Tshabalala-Msimang told the British newspaper Guardian that budgetary priorities meant her department could not provide antiretrovirals to the estimated 4.5m South Africans with HIV. "We don't have the money for that. Where would it come from?"

Asked if it could come from defence savings from leaving out the submarines which formed part of a £4bn arms deal, the minister said that South Africa needed to deter aggressors: "Look at what Bush is doing. He could invade."

President Bush is expected to visit South Africa in January although only as part of a diplomatic tour of several African countries.

Tshabalala-Msimang has been criticised by Aids activists for hindering the distribution of anti-Aids drugs.

Arguing that the drugs have yet to be fully tested, she said the priority for South Africans with HIV was food and called for donors to help feed them.

With acknowledgement to www.news24.co.za