Namibian Health Minister Dr. Libertina Amathila announced Monday that the Cabinet had recently created a new directorate in the health ministry to combat AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria. The UN Special Envoy on AIDS in Africa, Stephen Lewis, said the directorate would have 23 staff members concentrating on the three diseases. It was the first time that he had witnessed a Cabinet discussing HIV/AIDS with "great intensity and quite specific" details, Lewis said. "The centerpiece inevitably in all this is political leadership. ... Every speech by a cabinet minister should include a commentary -- HIV/AIDS. Everybody is going to funerals and I suspect that even cabinet ministers, over time, have died of AIDS, but we rarely identify AIDS at funerals," said Lewis. The establishment of the directorate is awaiting approval from the Public Service Commission, according to Health Permanent Secretary Dr. Kalumbi Shangula.

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