Police bear brunt of HIV/AIDS impact

At least 150 officers in Mozambique's police force die from AIDS-related illnesses every year, a senior official has revealed. According to general commander Miguel dos Santos, the ability of officers to meet the challenge of serving society was being severely hampered by HIV/AIDS. A recent report by the National Statistics Institute suggested that if the pandemic remained unchecked, AIDS would be the cause of one in three deaths by 2010. The local news agency, AIM, quoted Dos Santos as saying: "The infection rate [in Mozambique] is about 14.9 percent; the police are part of these statistics, in terms both of infected and affected people."