Take HIV test Mugabe told as 8 cabinet ministers live with AIDS (07-12-06)

ership in battling HIV/AIDS.
The award is named for a Zimbabwean woman who declared her HIV-positive status in 1989 despite the enormous stigma then attached to such disclosure and the risk of discrimination. She died in 1998.
An official with the Zimbabwean non-governmental AIDS organisation, Zimbabwe National Network for People Living with HIV/AIDS (ZNNP) told The Zimbabwean that eight of President Robert Mugabe’s 22 cabinet ministers are living with AIDS. The ZNNP official said the ministers were among 500 patients on anti-retroviral drugs to treat HIV, which his group provides free. He would not divulge the names of the ministers for “ethical and professional reasons” but said it was imperative that the President takes an HIV test to remove the conspiracy of silence surrounding the disease.
Aids lobbyists agree it would help Zimbabwe’s war against the virus if the ministers were to go public about their status.
More than 300,000 Zimbabweans need antiretroviral drug treatment but only about 40,000 currently receive them. The AIDS pandemic has left an estimated 1.6 million orphans in Zimbabwe – the largest number per capita in the world.