HIV-positive prisoners still dying

The AIDS support group at Westville Prison in South Africa's east-coast city of Durban said on Tuesday that the pandemic was still wreaking havoc among inmates.

Sifiso Ndlovu, the group's spokesman, told the city's Mercury newspaper that prisoners were dying because of "empty promises" made by the department of correctional services to provide them with antiretroviral medication in prisons.

"This is a huge problem for inmates because they need to go to government hospitals to get treatment, and that is not happening," Ndlovu said.

The deputy commissioner of correctional services, Tebogo Motseki, announced in May that his department was in the process of making anti-AIDS drugs readily accessible in its facilities.