AIDS deaths rise among prison staff

Kenya loses around ten to fifteen prison warders each month to AIDS-related illnesses, local newspaper The Nation reported on Friday. The Commissioner of Prisons, Abraham Kamakil, said the deaths were exerting pressure on the remaining prison staff and appealed for increased funding for awareness programmes. "We are losing ten to fifteen staff in a month to HIV/AIDS. There could be other causes to some of the deaths but we know the main one is HIV/AIDS," Kamakil said. Meanwhile, Kenya's armed forces reported that 50 to 60 percent of its hospital beds in the capital, Nairobi, were occupied by patients who were there as a result of HIV/AIDS.