Mandela steps up pressure over Aids

South African President Thabo Mbeki is today under enormous pressure to act decisively against Aids after Nelson Mandela revealed his son had died from the disease.

Mr Mbeki has presided over a huge spread of HIV/Aids through the country's population to the extent that one in nine people now suffers from the

condition - the world's highest infection rate. He has also repeatedly refused to acknowledge the link between HIV infection and Aids and resisted demands to make anti-retroviral drugs, which stabilise the condition, available until two years ago.

But Mr Mandela's announcement yesterday that his 54-year-old son Makgatho had just died in a Johannesburg clinic from Aids-related complications threatens to explode the conspiracy of silence.

At a press conference called within hours of his son's death, the 86-year-old Nobel Peace laureate said: "For more than three years, I have been saying let us give publicity to HIV/Aids and not hide it, because the only way of making it appear to be a normal illness is to come out and say somebody has died because of HIV."

It is also thought Mr Mandela impressed the urgent need for action on Mr Mbeki in person when the leader paid a condolence visit to the family home.