Feature: S. Africans from Different Walks Mark World AIDS Day

South Africa, host of last July's high-profile 13th International AIDS Conference, marked the World AIDS day December 1 by mobilizing the public across the country.

In Durban, more than 100 anti-AIDS activists marched to the Central Park to honor a woman killed shortly after revealing her HIV/AIDS status.

Gugu Dlamini was stoned to death at her home at KwaMashu, north of Durban, on December 14, 1998, two weeks after she revealed she was an HIV carrier on that year's World AIDS Day.

"It is ironic that Dlamini did not die from AIDS, but from the disease of ignorance," said North Central Durban Mayor Nomsa Dube at the gathering.

"The significance of her life is that she died in trying to bring light to where there was darkness. She died so that those who have AIDS could live with dignity and compassion. Her struggle was that of a woman and a mother who wanted the best for her daughter," commented the official.

But officials with the country's national government also seem to be eyeing on more aid from the international community.

"Although there are no social or economic barriers to HIV/AIDS, a household's initial poverty level clearly affects its ability to cope with the illness and death, and increases the cycle of vulnerability to HIV infection," said the country's Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang.

The 48-million-US dollar donation of anti-AIDS medicine by the US pharmaceutical giant Pfizer is clearly a gesture in that direction, said the minister, at the donation ceremony held here also on Friday.

The donated chemical, Fluconazole, may hopefully give millions of HIV/AIDS victims in the country a glimmer of hope, said some local newspapers.

The number of HIV/AIDS victims has reached about 3.8 million in South Africa, an alarming figure in a country with a population of only 43 million.

And the alarm is real.

In Pretoria, chief electoral officer Mandla Mchunu complained that 379,395 people had been removed from last year's voter's roll, with many of them died from the killer disease.

"AIDS is a reality in South Africa, the continent and the world, " he stressed.

In Witbank, a city near Pretoria, the country's Deputy President Jacob Zuma is to launch the Powerbelt Anti-HIV/AIDS Project, a collaborative initiative sponsored by the coal mining industry and government in Mpumalanga in northern South Africa.

"The Powerbelt HIV/AIDS Project is an excellent example of public-private partnership in the war against the AIDS virus. We need this type of partnership now more than ever before, as there is strength in collective and co-ordinated action when faced by such a tough enemy," said the deputy president.

"Men can make a difference" is the theme of this year's AIDS day commemoration in the country.

Transport network, moving millions of people around every day, offers a unique opportunity to raise up anti-HIV/AIDS awareness, said Transport Minister Dullah Omar Friday in Johannesburg, the largest city in the country.

"These movements can either continue to widen the reach of HIV or they can become powerful channels for spreading information, knowledge and understanding." he noted.

In Gauteng Province, citizens are taking part in the "taxis and takkies" campaign, in which thousands of volunteers took to the streets and taxi ranks, distributing anti-AIDS stickers and condoms.

In Cape Town, the country's second largest city, workers form human chains, handing out condoms and red ribbons to motorists in industrial areas under the leadership of the trade unions.






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