South Africa's Military Fights War Against AIDS

HIV/AIDS affects 23 percent of South Africa's military force, Brigadier General Pieter Oelofse, director of medicine for the military, told a national AIDS conference in Durban today. "From a military perspective we are fighting a war, a human war," Oelofse said, adding that HIV/AIDS hampers the military's ability to serve in peace missions abroad.

Under a U.S.-sponsored program that studies the impact of antiretroviral drugs (ARVs) on combat-readiness, about 1,000 South African soldiers and their dependents are receiving the life-prolonging drugs. Under UN guidelines, HIV-positive soldiers are discouraged from serving in international peace missions. Oelofse said the South African government is considering whether to depart from that rule if ongoing research on the soldiers on ARVs shows they can take the medication and perform their duties.

Although the military can supply soldiers for current missions in Burundi and the Democratic Republic of Congo, Oelfose noted, "we are getting a bit stretched."

Colonel Xolani Currie, who heads the military ARV research, said some HIV-positive soldiers are now serving in border control units as part of data collection for the five-year study.

The U.S. government has given the South African military $50 million over the next five years under the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, which aims to fund ARVs for 500,000 South Africans by 2008.

HIV testing is mandatory for soldiers who enlist in international peace missions. About 81 percent of South Africa's 70,000 military personnel have been tested. The 23 percent HIV prevalence rate in the military is slightly higher than the rate in the population at large, 21.5 percent.

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