African drums, tears mark S Africa aids conference

Johnson told 2,000 delegates how his parents abandoned him for fear of stigmatisation and isolation from their community if they found out that their then three-year-old child was infected with HIV.

"I never knew I had a father…Infected mummies and daddies shouldn’t be separated from their children,” Nkosi said.

Johnson’s natural mother later died of AIDS, being just one of the nearly 19 million people who have died of the epidemic.

"I know my mother is in heaven and she is in my heart and is watching over me.”

Looking dignified and undaunted by his international audience, Nkosi spoke of how the school in which his foster mother, Gail Johnson, planned to enrol him was split on whether to admit him given his HIV status.

It was only after pressure from Gail that he was allowed to attend the school.

"No one seemed to know what to do with me at the school…We must give HIV-infected children the right to go to school,” Nkosi said to loud applause.

Nkosi also described how his foster mother, then a nurse, taught him about his condition and how to bandage his wounds to avoid others getting infected.

"If I cut myself and leave it unbandaged, it’s the only time that people have to be afraid of me. You can’t get HIV from hugging or kissing,” he said.

The young activist also urged the government to give the antiretroviral drug Azt to pregnant women to reduce infection in children.

The South African government has so far refused to give pregnant women in the public health sector drugs which reduce the transmission of the virus to their children during childbirth. It argues that the drugs are too expensive and the country lacks the skilled staff and counsellors to monitor or supervise the such a programme.

Gail Johnson, who has been fostering Nkosi for eight years, said Nkosi had been speaking out publicly about AIDS since he was four years old, making him the youngest anti-AIDS activist in South Africa.