More than 1,200 Zambian teachers have died of AIDS-related illnesses since the beginning of 2004, and this number is expected to soar by the end of the year, the National Union of Teachers has revealed.
General secretary Roy Mwaba said the majority of educators were reluctant to know their status by visiting HIV voluntary counselling and testing centres, and were therefore unable to access life prolonging anti-AIDS drugs.
Mwaba told a local newspaper, The Post, that before the advent of the HIV/AIDS pandemic, the country's teachers were not dying in their thousands.
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