QUNU, South Africa (AFP) - Dressed in black and wearing a red ribbon, Nelson Mandela bade his only surviving son a final goodbye in his home village in southeast South Africa, ten days after he died from AIDS.

A solemn Mandela threw a handful of sand on the casket of Makgatho at the family grave site as thousands of mourners watched, listening to hymns under cloudy skies in the village of Qunu.

His wife Graca, also wearing the red ribbon symbolizing AIDS awareness, clutched Mandela's hand as he watched the casket descend into its final resting place just half a mile from his house.

Makgatho, 54, a lawyer who led a quiet life in Johannesburg, died on January 6 in hospital after spending several weeks in intensive care where his father had paid many visits.

Mandela convened a news conference at his Johannesburg home just hours after the death to announce that his son had succumbed to AIDS, becoming one of the few leaders to break the silence over the disease affecting one in five adults in South Africa.

Following Mandela's call for openness about AIDS, Makgatho's son Mandla disclosed at the funeral that his mother Zondi had also died of AIDS a year earlier.

"He is not the first to be killed by AIDS. Our mother died from AIDS. In spite of this, we are not used to death," said Mandla, who spoke at the funeral held in a large tent set up in an open field near Mandela's home.

"This disease kills and some of us have fear and are afraid to say their loved ones have died from AIDS," said Chief Ngangomhlaba Matanzima of the Xhosa tribe to which the Mandela clan belongs.

Zwelakhe Sisulu, son of the late struggle hero Walter Sisulu and a childhood friend of Makgatho, recalled that growing up under apartheid rule had been difficult for the children of the liberation movement's leaders.

"What we see here are the consequences of apartheid. We never had a home life. We thought this was the nature of things. In retrospective, I understand that had we had parental guidance these things would not have happened," said Sisulu.

Mandela, who has been at the forefront of his country's fight against AIDS, said after his son's death that openness was key to removing the stigma surrounding the disease.

"To come out and to say somebody has died because of HIV... people will stop regarding it as something extraordinary, as an illness reserved to people who are going to go to hell and not heaven," he said.

Mandela's successor, President Thabo Mbeki, who attended the funeral, has been accused of holding back the campaign against AIDS, South Africa's number one killer, before finally announcing a plan to provide free drugs to those most in need.

Mandela's eldest child and only surviving son by his first wife Evelyn, who died last year, Makgatho was laid to rest in the grave site near Mandela's only other son, Thembekile, who died in a car accident in 1969.

Mandela, who was serving a prison sentence when Thembekile died, was denied permission to attend that funeral.

Mandela now has three surviving children: Makaziwe, a daughter from his first marriage, and Zindzi and Zenani, two daughters from his second marriage to Winnie Madikizela-Mandela from whom he separated in 1992.

Makgatho married twice and is survived by four sons.

Pakistani premier urges South Asian countries to jointly fight AIDS

Lawmakers and government ministers from more than a dozen countries opened a two-day conference on AIDS Friday, as Pakistani Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz called on South Asian nations to make joint efforts to fight the pandemic.

"The killer disease knows no borders and spares no one," state-run Associated Press of Pakistan news agency quoted Aziz as saying. "We have to fight this for our future generations...there is no room for complacency."

The conference brings together ministers and members of parliament from four South Asian countries _ Bangladesh, Nepal, India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka _ and 11 other countries, to discuss how to cooperate in the fight against AIDS, APP reported.

Aziz said South Asian countries should not delay in joining hands to tackle the disease.

"If we do not take time out to support (each other), then the entire South Asia will miss an opportunity," Aziz said.

Nafis Sadik, the U.N. Secretary General's Special Envoy for HIV/AIDS in Asia, said some 1.7 million people were living with AIDS in South and South East Asia.

Sadik said lawmakers and government leaders should join efforts to remove the stigma that people attach to victims of HIV/AIDS and create awareness about the disease, APP reported.

Parliamentarians for Global Action, a grouping of 1,350 lawmakers from some 111 countries, has organized the AIDS conference in the Pakistani capital Islamabad.

Mozambique to more than double free HIV treatment in 2005: ministry

Malawi hopes to treble AIDS patients on free drugs by July

 

BLANTYRE (AFP) - Malawi hopes to more than treble the number of AIDS patients on free drugs by July this year after receiving a 14-million-dollar (11 million euro) grant from a global fund, a health official told AFP.

"We shall now be on course with our... HIV scale-up plan. The ultimate aim is to reach 36,000 with ARVs (anti-retrovirals) by July this year," Biswick Mwale, head of the southern African nation's AIDS commission, said Monday.

Some 9,500 people are currently enrolled in Malawi's free treatment program launched last May with money provided by the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.

"This (the 14-million-dollar grant) is part of a total of 41 million US dollars the Global Fund committed for Malawi in two years," Mwale said.

Malawian President Bingu wa Mutharika has urged Malawians to go for AIDS tests, saying he wanted to see at least one million citizens testing their status this year to determine how many people in its 11-million population needed treatment.

Health officials here estimate that only three percent of Malawians have gone for voluntary HIV tests.

Mwale said one of the biggest challeges in the free ARVs program was the shortage of qualified staff at the seven state hospitals where the drugs are administered.

"There is a lot of congestion because ARV treatment requires trained professionals," he said.

UNAIDS estimated that some 84,000 people died of AIDS in Malawi in 2003, while about 14 percent of the country's adults are infected with the virus ravaging southern Africa.

An estimated 70 percent of hospital deaths are reported to be AIDS-related and 900,000 children have been left orphaned by the diesease here.

New AIDS Campaign Uses Animated Characters

A new global campaign to stop the spread of AIDS uses three animated characters dressed as condoms who deliver a serious message in humorous public service spots in 41 languages: If you're going to have sex, use a condom.

The short spots are being offered free to broadcasters, community groups and universities and have the potential of reaching 80 percent of the world's population, Canadian producer-director Firdaus Kharas said Tuesday.

"We're using humor to stop the spread of AIDS," he told a news conference launching the public service announcements, which are targeted at people aged 15 to 24 in countries threatened by the epidemic including India, China, Russia, the Caribbean and central Asia.

"The Three Amigos" _ as the cartoon condoms named Shaft, Stretch and Dick are called _ are pictured in a variety of settings from a spaceship to a soccer field to a casino. Twenty different spots are available in each of the 41 languages varying from 20 to 60 seconds in length. Some spots are blatantly sexual, others more restrained.

The punch line in the spaceship spot says: "No condom, No blastoff. Stop the spread of AIDS." The soccer spot says: "You just can't score without a condom." And the spot focusing on a roulette wheel in a casino says: "Not all gamblers realize the odds stacked against them. Don't gamble with your life. Use a condom. Stop the spread of AIDS."

Kharas said the idea for the spots came from his co-producer, South African film writer Brent Quint, who believes that AIDS is "a preventable disease," and that using animated figures and humor can get across the message that condoms are essential for safe sex.

The spots are currently being shown in South Africa, Canada and the Netherlands and have already won 25 international awards and a strong endorsement from South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who called them "a powerful communicating tool to encourage people to change their behavior."

Frequent playing of the spots "has the potential to capture the imagination of young people through humor, the portrayal of situations to which they can easily relate and the portrayal of characters who express what in a normal situation would be too embarrassing to speak of," he said.

Asked how the spots had been received in the United States, where the Bush administration is promoting abstinence rather than condom use, Kharas said arguing about abstinence vs. condoms "is sterile" because 5.3 million people got the HIV virus last year.

"I think we need to do everything possible" to prevent the spread of AIDS, he said.

Kharas said the United States isn't a primary target for the campaign though spots have already been requested by a number of universities.

He said some countries have been "touchy" about the spots, but he insisted that everyone should be able to find several that are acceptable. He noted that in South Africa, which has large Hindu and Muslim minorities, only two complaints had been received.

"The Three Amigos" was conceived and written in South Africa. The characters, props and layouts were designed and created in Canada, and the background and animation was done in India, Kharas said. More than 320 people volunteered to support the project.

Take Aminata Kabore, a bespectacled young woman in traditional dress. "I'm not ashamed to tell what my husband has done to me," she said. "In fact, by talking about it, I may save the lives of other women."

A couple of years ago, Aminata, who comes from a Moslem family, married a man who sought to replace his recently deceased second wife. His first wife agreed to the marriage. His third wife would elope several months later.

When Aminata found she was pregnant, she went to hospital for a medical check-up in the lively Abidjan neighborhood of Koumassi. Soon after, the nurses informed her that she was HIV positive. At first, she did not understand. How could it possibly be?

Aminata then learned that the third wife was gravely ill - just like Aminata's predecessor had been before she died. Aminata cautiously informed her husband of her status. He bundled up her few possessions and kicked her out.

"I've heard that he has fallen seriously ill," Aminata said. "He is only 48 years old, he should be in his prime. But despite him being half paralyzed, it would not surprise me if he continues to contaminate other women."

Aminata's playful son was born HIV positive. During her pregnancy, hospital staff referred her to the Active Women of Cote d'Ivoire (Femmes Actives de Cote d'Ivoire) network for support and advice.

Active Women was founded in 2001 and loosely groups 200 members, all living in the commercial capital Abidjan. Its main goal is to provide psychological support to pregnant women who have just found out that they are infected with HIV, to offer advice on how to inform their partner, and to prevent mother-to-child transmission.

A core group of about 20 women meet weekly at a grassy spot in the grounds of Koumassi hospital. These volunteers pull out plastic garden chairs from their tiny headquarters and discuss everything from the latest in nutritional advice for mothers living with HIV/AIDS to the home visits that need to be paid to members who are too sick to move.

It's a modest association with modest means. None of the members are wealthy, some are even desperately poor. But simply sharing with other infected women is priceless, said Nahounou Kennedy, an enthusiastic woman who is one of Active Women's consultants.

"The first time I joined the group, I registered under a false name. But I could hardly believe my eyes when I met the vice-chairwoman. She looked so beautiful. I would never have thought that she was really infected with HIV," Nahounou said.

"That experience marked me profoundly. I realised the fact that I am HIV positive does not mean that I have to look repugnant. At that moment I decided to always try to look as pretty as possible."

From then on, Nahounou also decided to give her real name.

Active Women is one of many HIV-AIDS solidarity groups in Cote d'Ivoire, which has the highest HIV prevalence rate in West Africa. Official data provided by the health ministry indicate that 9.5 percent of the population is infected.

But for such a small, grassroots organisation, it has been remarkably successful in obtaining funding and antiretroviral drugs from organisations like CARE and RETROCI, a US-sponsored research project based in Abidjan focusing on mother-to-child transmission.

"In 2003, we were able to obtain free ARV treatment for 87 women, and we're well over that number now," said Bertine Semilou, the charismatic chairwoman.

"We have tied a partnership with a women's group in Belgium and we'd love to create more, but that won't be easy until we have our own internet connection. We lack funds at the moment."

Fortunately, she added with a smile, providing psychological support can be cheap - often, it means just talking and listening.

From the hospital laboratory next door, dozens of pregnant women have been sent directly to Bertine, who is extremely outspoken about being HIV positive and has even appeared on national TV to talk about her life.

"Women who have just learnt that they are HIV positive need to be told that they are not alone," said Bertine. "We try to console them and accompany them home. It is not unusual that people can't accept the news and start questioning the veracity of the blood test. But we keep talking, listening, and giving advice," she said.

Another of Bertine's achievements is a markedly West African success. "I'm very proud that 170 of our members have told their partner that they are infected with HIV-AIDS."

In a region where men often react violently to the news that their wife or girlfriend is HIV positive, even to the point of cold-heartedly throwing them out, most women don't know how to break the terrible news.

The statuesque young woman who gave her name as Monique tried this strategy.

"It's important to know what kind of man you have to confront," she said. "So I wept for weeks without telling my husband why. I wept and wept and wept. He was very touched by this. I noticed that he was very compassionate towards me."

Monique simultaneously tried to find out how sensitive her husband was on the subject of HIV/AIDS. "I mentioned it every once in a while without telling him everything just to see if it frightened him. For instance, I asked him whether he thought that it was something evil."

Active Women advices its members to broach the subject when the husband in question has eaten a nice home-cooked dinner and has comfortably settled down on the couch. When he feels at ease, he might be more responsive, according to Bertine.

Monique did just that - and broke down in tears once more. It worked. "My husband felt pity for me and wanted to show me that he was a real man, that I could rely on him and that he would take care of me."

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