JOHANNESBURG, Aug 25 (AFP) - Former South African president Nelson Mandela has disclosed that three of his relatives have died of AIDS, a Sunday newspaper reported.
Mandela told the Johannesburg-based Sunday Times his 22-year-old niece and two of his great nephews had died of the disease recently in the Transkei, the southeastern part of the country where Mandela was born.
"I became aware of my niece's illness when I came down to the Transkei ... I learnt that she was in hospital and that she was HIV-positive. I went to see her ... I left some money for my brother to treat her.
"A few days later I got back to Johannesburg, I heard that she had died," the newspaper quoted him as saying.
Mandela spoke little of HIV/AIDS while he was president from 1994 to 1999 but has in the past two years tried hard to raise awareness of the disease, which afflicts 4.7 million South Africans.
He has also repeatedly called on the government to provide anti-retroviral treatment for sufferers, in particular HIV-positive pregnant women, and is trying to force the hand of President Thabo Mbeki, who claims the drugs are dangerous.
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