Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe admitted for the first time this week that members of his family had been affected by HIV/Aids. Mugabe told a conference on Aids that unnamed members of his family had become ill from the disease. Describing HIV/Aids as ”one of the greatest challenges facing our nation”, he said that most people had been affected ”and that includes the extended family of the president himself”.
The admission came after years of official neglect of a virus that has infected almost a quarter of adults in Zimbabwe, one of the highest prevalence rates in the world. In 2003 1,8-million Zimbabweans were infected and a recent survey found that 51% of prisoners were HIV-positive.
As many as 3 000 people in Zimbabwe die of Aids-related illnesses each week, a toll largely blamed for a drop in life expectancy to 36 years. Figures released this week showed that 135 000 people died of Aids last year.
Mugabe was speaking at the country’s first Aids conference, which was designed to enable officials, health workers and community groups to draw up a strategy to fight the disease.
His revelation put him in the company of South Africa’s former president Nelson Mandela, who broke a taboo by speaking publicly of losing relatives to the disease. Other former presidents have gone further by specifying that they lost not just members of their extended family, which in Africa can be large, but close relatives. Zambia’s Kenneth Kaunda said his son had died of Aids and Malawi’s Bakili Muluzi his brother.
Mugabe may have noted that those admissions earned plaudits at home and abroad for helping to fight the stigma of a disease that affects an estimated 30-million Africans.
This week Mugabe also asked the private sector for help. ”There is no doubt that HIV/Aids is one of the greatest challenges facing our nation. The disease does not respect status, it does not respect colour … It is a war that belongs to all of us,” he said.
”We appeal for the greater participation of the private sector. I believe there is scope for [the] government and the pharmaceutical companies to work together to bring the prices of the drugs down and enable more of our people to benefit.”
The United Nations, a co-sponsor of the event, said economic hardships had led people, particularly women, to take sexual risks. ”The fact that it has taken us this long just to hold a conference shows how much the government has neglected the suffering caused by Aids,” said one delegate, a doctor. Only about 5% of the population has come forward for testing, reflecting a continent-wide reluctance to know one’s HIV status.
In a rare display of unity last month, nine government and oppo-sition MPs went for voluntary counselling and testing, prompting critics to ask when the president would make a high-profile gesture of his own.
The government denies accusations that it has lacked the political will to deal effectively with the crisis, first reported in Zimbabwe 18 years ago.
It established the National Aids Council, but the organisation has been plagued by corruption scandals. Critics say it only funds groups controlled by Mugabe’s Zanu-PF party. — Â