Mandela Says Son Died of AIDS

[alicia-w]

How sad. As if that family hasnt been through enough already...


JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - South Africa's Nelson Mandela, one of Africa's most committed campaigners in the battle against AIDS, announced that his only surviving son had succumbed to the disease on Thursday.

Makgatho Mandela, 54, died in a Johannesburg clinic where he had been receiving treatment for more than a month. His wife Zondi died in 2003 from pneumonia.

"We have called you today to announce that my son has died of AIDS," the 86-year-old Nobel Peace laureate told a news conference, urging a redoubled fight against the disease.

"Let us give publicity to HIV/AIDS and not hide it, because the only way to make it appear like a normal illness like TB, like cancer, is always to come out and to say somebody has died because of HIV. And people will stop regarding it as something extraordinary," said a frail-looking Mandela, surrounded by his grandchildren and other family members.


Mandela was helped to his seat by his wife, Graca Machel. He frequently paused for water at the news conference in the garden of his Johannesburg home.


His announcement of his personal AIDS tragedy challenged the taboo which keeps many Africans from discussing an epidemic that now infects more than 25 million people across the continent.


In South Africa, which with some five million HIV/AIDS infections has the highest AIDS caseload in the world, the disease kills more than 600 people each day, activists say.


"There is no disease which we must be afraid of identifying that a member of the family has died from," Mandela said, citing his own announcement in the 1980s that he had been diagnosed separately with tuberculosis, and later, prostate cancer while in prison. He underwent successful prostate surgery.


"That is the only way of making ordinary illness ordinary," Mandela said.


The opposition Inkatha Freedom Party praised Mandela's "courageous step" of disclosing the cause of his son's death.


"We know it is not an easy decision to make and yet it is the right thing to do," it said in a statement.


Veteran Inkatha leader Mangosuthu Buthelezi helped to break the silence last year when he announced that two of his children had died from AIDS-related causes.


The Treatment Action Campaign which has led pressure on the government for the rights of HIV/AIDS sufferers to life-prolonging drugs also hailed Mandela's announcement.


"It is a very, very important step," spokesman Mark Heywood said. "Mandela is to be saluted for it."


President Thabo Mbeki, who has been widely accused of moving slowly on South Africa's AIDS crisis, earlier paid a condolence visit to Mandela accompanied by his wife.


FIRST SON KILLED IN ROAD CRASH


Mandela lost his first son, Madiba Thembekile, in a car crash in 1969 while still in prison for his efforts to end white rule in South Africa. The apartheid government denied him permission to attend that funeral.


Mandela has suffered a string of personal losses over the last several years. He buried Makgatho's mother, his first wife Evelyn Mase, in 2004 and attended the funeral for Makgatho's wife Zondi following her death.


In 2003, Mandela led South Africa in mourning for his African National Congress comrade Walter Sisulu, whose death at the age of 90 left Mandela almost alone among the elder generation of leaders who helped end apartheid and bring multi-racial democracy to South Africa in 1994.


Mandela had cancelled several holiday engagements over the past month to remain close to his ailing son. He has several daughters from his marriages including two from his second wife Winnie Madikizela-Mandela.


Makgatho Mandela was a lawyer with a background in insurance who kept a relatively low profile.

[GalvestonDuck]

"We have called you today to announce that my son has died of AIDS," the 86-year-old Nobel Peace laureate told a news conference, urging a redoubled fight against the disease.

<snip>

"There is no disease which we must be afraid of identifying that a member of the family has died from," Mandela said.

I understand that he wants to break the taboo of saying that someone had AIDS before they died. But no one dies of AIDS. They die from pneumonia, Kaposi's sarcoma, sepsis, or one of a number of other diseases or conditions that they get because their body's immunity is lowered due to the HIV virus killing off their T-cells, a syndrome that is referred to as AIDS. But the syndrome itself is not fatal. A person could possibly walk around with 10 T-cells in their body and not die. But if they get an infection, then they're in trouble.

Nevertheless, it's sad that he lost his only surviving son.