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Presidential aid admits personal HIV/AIDS loss

    JOHANNESBURG

    South Africa's head of communications in the presidency, Murphy Morobe, earlier this week said he had lost six family members to HIV/AIDS over the past three years.

    Morobe's remarks are in contrast to President Thabo Mbeki's statement in 2003 that he "did not personally know anyone who had died from AIDS".

    The communications head made public his family's loss while receiving a memorandum from the AIDS lobby group, Treatment Action Campaign (TAC), demanding that 200,000 HIV-positive people get free AIDS drugs by the start of 2006.

    According to the South African Press Association, Morobe promised to hand TAC's list of demands to Jacob Zuma, the country's deputy president.

    This article was produced by IRIN News while it was part of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Please send queries on copyright or liability to the UN. For more information: https://shop.un.org/rights-permissions

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