Mon séjour en Afrique du Sud (Cape Town)

HIV has infected one in four soldiers in South Africa's Armed Forces, severely restricting the country's capacity to deploy troops in the region.

General Pieter Oelofse, the head of medicine at the South African Defence Force (SANDF), told parliament that 23 per cent of soldiers were estimated to have contracted the virus. "Our deployable force is shrinking due to medical reasons," he said.

The statistics were produced by mandatory Aids testing of troops sent on UN peacekeeping missions, which are off limits to infected soldiers. About 3,000 of the country's 70,000 troops are stationed in Burundi and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Aids specialists fear a higher, 40 per cent infection rate among soldiers. The SANDF has sought to play down concerns about a lack of combat readiness due to Aids. General Oelofse claimed that hearing loss and obesity were a more common reason than Aids for soldiers not meeting the criteria for peacekeeping missions.

Yet the cost of treatment and man-days lost to Aids is likely to increase sharply over the next few years. In 1996, 40 per cent of military deaths were due to medical reasons. Today that figure is 70 per cent. Soldiers showing symptoms of Aids would on average lose 45 working days a year, while a patient with full blown Aids would have a minimum of 120 days off a year, the Armed Forces say.

Infected soldiers and their families have been entitled to free anti retroviral drugs since February, although the programme has not yet been fully rolled out.

Soldiers who become too ill to continue working will remain on the defence force's health plan.

South African troops cannot be tested for Aids without their permission unless they are to be deployed abroad. The SANDF is encouraging voluntary testing. It hopes to test 50,000 personnel over the next five years.

General Oelofse said that the SANDF had drawn up plans to recruit younger and healthier troops.

The infection rate for the Armed Forces is slightly higher than that in the community as a whole, where 20 per cent of those between the ages of 15 and 49 are HIV positive.