Mandela's Wife Urges Uganda to Share Story of Successes Against AIDS

In Kampala today, Graca Machel, the wife of former South African President Nelson Mandela, urged Ugandan authorities to share the lessons learned from their fight against AIDS with other African states. Machel arrived accompanying Stephen Lewis, the UN's special envoy for AIDS in Africa, on a weeklong tour of Uganda, where they will visit AIDS projects. At Mulago Hospital, Kampala's main health facility, they talked with HIV-positive pregnant women who are taking medication to prevent transmission of the virus to their unborn babies. Tomorrow, they are to meet with President Yoweri Museveni before embarking on a tour of some rural areas hit hard by AIDS. Uganda has cut its HIV infection rate from 30 percent in 1990 to 5 percent today. "We need you [Ugandans] to take the regional political drive to show others that this can be done," Machel told Foreign Minister James Wapakhabulo.

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