Mon séjour en Afrique du Sud (Cape Town)

Nearly one in every four South African servicemen has contracted HIV/AIDS while the country 's political parties urged the government to increase public spending and education to fight against the pandemic.

The South African National Defense Force (SANDF) estimated the extent of HIV/AIDS among its soldiers stands at 23 percent, the SANDF's health service director Pieter Oelofse said on Tuesday.

The estimate was based on tests conducted on personnel being assessed for deployment on foreign peace-keeping missions, he was quoted as saying by SABC news.

The proportion was even higher than South Africa's average HIV prevalence rate, which was estimated to be 15.2 percent in 2004 by Statistics South Africa, the country's statistical agency.

Such a prevalence has put South Africa, with a total population of some 45 million, on top of the list of hardest-hit countries by HIV/AIDS around the world.

According to Statistics South Africa's estimation, AIDS has killed 1.7 million South Africans, including two children of the country's Inkatha Freedom Party leader Mangosuthu Buthelezi.

Buthelezi has been praised for his bravery to tell the public the cause of his children's death after his 53-year-old son and 48- year-old daughter died of AIDS-related illnesses respectively in April and this month.

On Tuesday, he again warned South Africans that HIV/AIDS effects all, despite lifestyle.

"Only the most naive can continue to believe that they are not going to be directly or indirectly affected by HIV/AIDS because of its being allegedly limited to the poorer reaches of our nation, or those with particular sexual orientations," Buthelezi was quoted as saying by the South African Press Association.

He told the Parliament that HIV/AIDS has destroyed his family, "in spite of the lifestyle stringently maintained by my wife and me and the social status we enjoy."

Buthelezi blamed the government for failing to make HIV/AIDS a national emergency and by absolute priority.

AIDS, as well as crime, unemployment and poverty, should be treated as a national crisis and receive "the overwhelming allocation of public spending," he said.

South Africa's another political party, the Democratic Alliance (DA), has also appealed to the government to initiate campaigns across the country to curb widespread myths about HIV/AIDS.

The call was made following a two-year-old toddler was allegedly murdered by his mother with an ax on Sunday because she thought he was infected with HIV and was therefore possessed by the devil.

Local newspaper The Citizen said 4.2 percent of South Africans over the age of 15 believe AIDS is caused by witchcraft and 14.1 percent were not able to say whether they believed this or not.