Former South African President Nelson Mandela said Jan. 6 that his oldest son, Makgatho Mandela, 54, died of AIDS that morning. Mandela, 86, delivered the news to reporters at his suburban Johannesburg home. He said being honest about the matter was ‘the only way of making an ordinary illness ordinary.’
‘Let us give publicity to HIV/AIDS and not hide it, because the only way to make it appear like a normal illness like TB, like cancer, is always to come out and to say somebody has died because of HIV. And people will stop regarding it as something extraordinary,’ Mandela said.
Makgatho Mandela’s wife died of pneumonia last year. The couple has four children.
Nelson Mandela has been active in the fight against AIDS since leaving office in 1997. South Africa is believed to have the world’s highest AIDS caseload. Six hundred people die of the disease daily there.