SOUTH AFRICA
They may have rid themselves of the shackles of the oppressive apartheid regime, but freedom apparently still manages to elude the Blacks of South Africa. They have, in fact, been invaded and held captive by a dead lier foe: the AIDS virus.
According to a recent study conducted by the health officials in South Africa, the number of p6ople infected$ with Hiv has increased 10-fold since 1990. Today, about 1.2 million South Africans - or nearly 8 per cent of the, entire population - are in the throes of this distase, By the year 2000, at least 8 million are likely to join the clan of the doomed.
"What is most disturbing for all of us is that this disease is growing at such a rate among the Black people only," laments, Clarence Mini, co-chairperson of the National AIDS Coordinating Council of South Africa. And the blame lies squarely on the 'erstwhile White minority governm6t, which spent less than a quarter of its expenses on the health outlay of whites, for the Blacks.
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