Scientists in South Africa are exploring whether one of the country's most precious commodities, gold, could hold the key in the battle against diseases such as AIDS, malaria and cancer.

As the country struggles to bring down the world's highest AIDS tally after India and treat thousands of malaria and cancer cases, scientists are looking at developing gold-based drugs to include in the ever-growing array of medicines to combat the illnesses.

"This year is probably our most exciting, because in the beginning of the year we identified a series of gold-based drugs that are very active in the fight against cancer," said Judy Caddy, who heads medical research at the national mineral researcher Mintek's Project AuTEK.

A joint venture between Mintek and the country's largest mining houses, AngloGold Ashanti, Goldfields and Harmony, Project AuTEK looks at the research and development of novel industrial applications for gold.

"Various researchers said: 'We have got all these cancer drugs and we really need a cure for HIV, what about testing these compounds in relation to HIV?'," said Caddy in an interview with AFP.

The drugs tried out on cancer also showed promising results in treating malaria and HIV, she said.

"What they found was that these drugs indeed have therapeutic value for HIV."

A key HIV researcher at the AuTEK biomed team, Raymond Hewer, told the Johannesburg-based The Star newspaper that gold-based drugs had demonstrated the ability to inhibit HIV replication in test tube experiments.

Once fully developed, the drugs could be considered as a potential choice of therapy for individuals infected with HIV, he said.

Scientists still needed to test their findings on live specimens -- which could take time and yield unexpected results.

Caddy stressed that HIV gold-based drug research, which involved taking an HIV infected cell and subject it to treatment to a drug to see if it inhibited HIV, only started in the middle of last year.

"We still have a way to go," she added, saying it can take as long as 20 years for drugs to move from initial tests to commercialisation.

Of research into the three diseases, cancer treatment was the most developed and scientists have already identified a series of gold-based drugs that were active -- which means that the disease was being inhibited -- and selective, meaning that just the disease and not healthy cells was being targeted.

Research into drugs preventing malaria, a disease which affected more than 5,300 South Africans last year, was progressing quickly, Caddy said.

And although researchers are getting results from their tests, they do not quite know how gold-based drugs work, Caddy said.

"The mechanism of action is something that's still a long way from known. There is still debate on exactly how it works," she said, adding her team's research would prioritise finding out exactly how the drugs worked.

Even so, the medicinal effects of gold have been known for thousands of years in places like ancient Egypt and China, where it was used to treat ailments such as smallpox, skin ulcers and measles. In the Middle Ages, gold was often a key ingredient in "magic potions."

"From its early historical use in ancient cultures, gold is becoming increasingly important in many modern medical treatments, ranging from drugs to precision implants," the London-based World Gold Council said on its website.

Added Caddy: "The difference between platinum-based drugs or other precious metal drugs is that it is seen as the carrier of a therapeutic entity to a target."

"Gold metal itself is therapeutic -- and that's what is important."

That may be exactly what South Africa's 5.5 million people with HIV/AIDS would like to hear.

Traditional medical practitioners need to be recruited to fight AIDS in Africa, which accounts for 60 percent of the world's cases, a senior United Nations official said.

"Countries should embrace traditional health practitioners as partners in the healthcare system," Luis Gomes Sambo, the UN World Health Organisation's regional director for Africa, said in a statement.

He said studies in some countries showed "improved health delivery" and "earlier referrals to bio-medical facilities by traditional health practitioners," leading to increased awareness about HIV/AIDS.

"Despite these positive aspects, in many countries, HIV/AIDS prevention efforts have been fragmented and made unfocused and redundant due to the failure of key stakeholders to work with each other."

"All practitioners need to better appreciate the strength of both disciplines," he said, adding that if traditional doctors were brought in, it could help "reach large numbers of people who otherwise would have very little access to HIV/AIDS prevention and services."

"We need therefore to take steps to overcome these challenges if traditional medicine is to systematically contribute to the prevention of HIV/AIDS," he said.

In the 25th year since the naming of the HIV virus, the world's poorest continent has taken some strides in fighting the pandemic but experts say that a shortage of funds and poor health systems and policies mean that far more needs to be done.

According to the latest UNAIDS report, 24.5 million people were living with HIV in sub-Saharan Africa at the end of last year, some 64 percent of the world's total.

The UN has clashed with continental giant South Africa, which with 5.5 million infections has one of the world's heaviest caseloads, over its AIDS policies with matters coming to a head at the recent AIDS conference in Toronto.

The UN's top envoy for AIDS in Africa Stephen Lewis denounced what he called "theories more worthy of a lunatic fringe than of a concerned and compassionate state".

South African Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang has come under fire at home and abroad for mooting diet of beetroot, garlic and lemons to fight HIV, an approach scientists say is worthless.

A new, deadly strain of tuberculosis has killed 52 of 53 people infected in the last year in South Africa, the World Health Organization said Friday, calling for improved measures to treat and diagnose the bacteria.

The strain was discovered in the Kwazulu-Natal region of South Africa, and is classified as extremely drug-resistant. Drugs from two of the six second-line medicines, used as a last line of defense against TB, proved ineffective against the new strain.

"We are extremely worried about the issue of extreme drug resistance," said Paul Nunn, coordinator of the WHO's drug resistance department. "If countries don't have the diagnostic capacity to find these patients, they will die without proper treatment."

Though even the most drug-resistant strains of TB have proven to be treatable with three classes of drugs, those drugs are more expensive and are toxic to the human body.

The WHO and its partners, including the South African Medical Research Council and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, planned a two-day meeting next week in South Africa to discuss the new TB strain in Africa and better ways to diagnose and treat it, Nunn said.

Tuberculosis is a respiratory illness spread by coughing and sneezing. Nearly 2 billion people worldwide are thought to be latently infected.

High mortality rates among TB patients in South Africa, however, prompted medical researchers to survey the cases, and ultimately to find the new strain.

Drug resistance is a common problem in TB treatment, but the new strain appears particularly virulent: 52 of the 53 patients infected all died within about three weeks of being tested for drug resistance.

"Genetic processes are constantly throwing up mutations of tuberculosis viruses, so this may have arisen due to some particular quirk of the environment or the way they were treated or their genetic background," said Paul Fine, a professor of communicable diseases at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

In general, drug-resistant bacteria are not as easily transmitted as those that are drug-sensitive.

Worldwide, about 2 percent of drug-resistant TB cases are classified as extremely drug-resistant. Little information is available on extreme drug resistance in Africa, but it is believed to be increasing.

The high prevalence of HIV/AIDS in Africa also complicates the issue of treating extremely drug-resistant TB.

"It's urgent to make the diagnosis when HIV is involved, because if you don't make it, the combination of HIV and TB will kill," Nunn said.