JOHANNESBURG, Nov 22 (AFP) - Nelson Mandela will Tuesday launch a campaign using the world's most famous prison number -- his own -- to try to raise an army of volunteers to fight HIV/AIDS in South Africa.
The Nelson Mandela Foundation is spearheading the drive with television and radio campaigns featuring messages from the elder statesman and Hollywood hearthrob Brad Pitt and a toll-free number where volunteers can phone in to offer their services.
"They are our brothers and sisters and they are entitled to our compassion and support," Mandela, who served 27 years in prison under apartheid, says in a clip of the advertisement, shown to reporters on Monday.
In the same clip Pitt, who met with Mandela recently and serves as the Foundation's ambassador for AIDS, says: "We must act and act now."
The number -- 0800046664 -- draws on the number of Mandela's prison cell 46664 which was used last year to stage a mega concert in Cape Town to raise funds for AIDS and drew rock and pop royalty like U2 frontman Bono, Peter Gabriel and Beyonce Knowles.
The hotline, which becomes operational on Tuesday will run till the end of December, and volunteers will be seconded to suitable AIDS organisations until April, an official from the Nelson Mandela Foundation said.
Before they are placed, they will be trained and sensitised for voluntary work.
The aim of the project is to "galvanise the whole of South Africa behind this issue," John Samuel, chief executive officer of the Foundation told a news conference.
Olive Shisana, chairwoman of the Nelson Mandela Foundation HIV/AIDS advisory group, said the campaign basically targetted the "white community and the educated black community," whose response to the pandemic was more apathetic than the others.
About 4.8 million people, or 22 percent of adults, are living with HIV and AIDS in South Africa, the highest number in the world, according to UN figures for 2003.
South African magnate Tokyo Sexwale said business had lent its full weight to the initiative and stressed that industry was badly hit by the pandemic.
"Close to 26 percent of workers in (the mining industry) are infected or affected," he said.
"There is a need for us to stem the tide ... We are asking for more hands but in the name of Nelson Mandela."
Nelson Mandela Foundation trustee Irene Menell said another thrust of the campaign would be the "de-stigmatisation" of AIDS and erasing the notion that "there is something culpable about people acquiring HIV/AIDS."
President Thabo Mbeki's government started this year with the continent's biggest and most ambitious AIDS treatment programmes, but by October only about 15,000 people living with AIDS were getting free drugs.
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