Associated Press - Sunday, December 1, 2002
Mike Cohen, Associated Press Writer

South Africa has more HIV positive people than any other country in the world. Figures released by the government more than two years ago showed that 4.7 million people - one in nine - were infected, and the figure today is believed to be substantially higher.

There are 42 million HIV positive people worldwide, with sub-Saharan Africa the worst affected region, according to UNAIDS, the U.N.'s AIDS agency.

Outside of sub-Saharan Africa, the AIDS epidemic in Asia threatens to become the largest in the world, and activists there on Sunday also tried to raise awareness of the disease and how to prevent it.

While South Africa's government had come under fire for not doing enough to combat the AIDS epidemic, it has recently shown signs of addressing the issue. This year the government almost tripled its anti-AIDS budget to $108 million, and plans to up this to $194 million in the next financial year.

Tony Leon, leader of the main opposition Democratic Alliance, said more needed to be done in light of the fact that South African women's average life expectancy would fall from 54 to 38 over the next 10 years and over 2 million children would be orphaned by AIDS.

"South Africa's fight against AIDS has been massively hampered and harmed by government's dithering, denial and dissent from the orthodoxies associated with the disease," he said.

President Thabo Mbeki previously questioned the link between HIV and AIDS, but over the past few months has refrained from commenting on the issue. World AIDS day events were low key in most southern African countries. In Malawi, where about 9 percent of the population is HIV positive, the government warned that AIDS was decimating the civil service and the economy. "Every day we are burying our workers, our teachers, our doctors and other professionals," Vice President Justin Malewezi said in a statement issued together with the findings of a new study on the impact of AIDS in Malawi. The study found that secondary schools had to replace 77 percent of their staff every year as a result of teachers dying or being too ill to work.

In the tiny mountain kingdom of Swaziland, King Mswati III placed advertisements in local newspapers urging his subjects to protect themselves against AIDS and look after those who had contracted it.

The government also urged priests to speak about the AIDS crisis in their Sunday sermons.

In Mozambique, AIDS awareness marches were staged countrywide, debates on AIDS were held on national radio and television and the government urged people to ascertain their HIV status.

In politically troubled Zimbabwe, President Robert Mugabe acknowledged that 2.2 million of the country's 13 million people were HIV positive, and that 700,000 children had been orphaned by AIDS.

"The impact of this tragedy has been such that each and every one of us knows of a relative, a loved one or a friend who has either died of the epidemic or is living with it," he said.

Countries across Asia commemorated World AIDS Day with events to raise awareness of the disease amid warnings that the number of people with HIV/AIDS in China and India - the world's two most populous nations - will reach epidemic levels. Bearing banners and signs, thousands took to the streets in Hanoi and Bangkok on Sunday to promote AIDS awareness. India staged a marathon to raise public knowledge of HIV/AIDS, while Beijing's imposing legislative hall hosted an awareness event.

"Silence is death when it comes to fighting HIV/AIDS," said Jordan Ryan, the U.N. resident coordinator in Vietnam, at a rally in Hanoi that drew 3,000 people. "It's time to tear down the walls of stigma and silence."
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