LONDON (Reuters) - A veil of secrecy still shrouds AIDS in some countries 20 years after it first reared its head but on Saturday China, the latest convert to openness, marked World AIDS Day by airing a shocking TV drama on the disease.
In South Africa, where more people live with HIV/AIDS than in any other country and the government is widely criticized for its ambiguous stance, former president Nelson Mandela called for victims to be given access to drugs that fight the disease.
``Nothing threatens us more today than HIV/AIDS...AIDS is a scourge threatening to undo all the gains we made in our generations of struggle,'' said Mandela, who headed the country's first post-apartheid government.
Close to five million people, or one in nine of the population, are affected in South Africa by the human immunodeficiency virus, HIV, or the Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome that it invariably leads to.
World AIDS Day was marked by pressure groups and governments alike, and included calls by a group of Indian prostitutes for their profession to be legalized. In the Seychelles, the government announced it would offer free antiretroviral drugs.
In 16 countries, more than one 10th of people aged 15-49 are infected with HIV. Worldwide, more than 40 million people live with HIV or AIDS, including 4.5 million children.
Twenty years after scientists in the United States reported first clinical evidence of the disease, there is no still cure.