Swaziland leads global Aids rate

Swaziland now has the world’s highest HIV/AIDS prevalence rate, with the disease affecting about 40 per cent of its people.

Swaziland now has the world’s highest HIV/AIDS prevalence rate, with the disease affecting about 40 per cent of its people.Stephen Lewis, UN secretary-general Kofi Annan’s special envoy for HIV and Aids in Africa, has told Swazi King Mswati III that “in recent months… the kingdom of Swaziland has recorded the highest HIV infection in the whole world.”According to the last official figures in Swaziland, HIV/AIDS affects about 38.6 per cent of the adult population. Mr Lewis says the prevalence rate in countries like Botswana, which at one time had the biggest rate of infection, had declined from 38.8 per cent to 37.5 per cent. (Source: AFP, ABC Health News, March 2004)