AIDS is killing around 1 200 people a week in Zimbabwe, President Robert Mugabe said on Sunday. Mugabe revealed the figures at a rally to mark the country’s independence anniversary. “The diseases situation in 1998 was dominated by the growing HIV/AIDS epidemic. With an estimated average of some 1 200 AIDS-related deaths per week, AIDS is reversing the gains which the country has made since independence,” he said. The Health Ministry reported some 2 000 new HIV infections a week in Zimbabwe, which ranks second in sub-Saharan Africa in HIV infections after Botswana. Some 70 000 Zimbabweans are expected to die of AIDS this year, according to the country’s AIDS control programme. Since 1985 around 1.6 million people out of Zimbabwe’s population of 12 million have been infected with the AIDS virus, and at least 600 000 children have been orphaned by the disease.