Mandela in Hiv Plea to Youth

Nelson Mandela, South Africa's former president, urged people to fight Aids by using condoms and waiting until their late teens to have sex as figures suggested that more than 6 million South Africans are infected with the Aids virus.

The department of health said that between 6.29 and 6.57 million South Africans were infected with HIV. In May, Statistics South Africa, a state agency, had put the number at about 4.5 million.

"Aids has spread because people have so many partners," Mr Mandela was quoted as saying by the South African Press Association.

"People should use condoms and try to resist being with a partner until about 18 or 19 years old."

Mr Mandela was speaking at his Johannesburg foundation, where he introduced four new ambassadors for his HIV/Aids awareness campaign.

The latest statistics were from a 2004 study of women at antenatal clinics. According to blood tests on the women, 29.5% were HIV-positive, up from 27.9% in 2003.

The infection rate was as high as 40% among pregnant women in KwaZulu-Natal, the country's worst-affected province.

The health department said its latest estimates assumed that HIV prevalence among pregnant women visiting antenatal clinics was the same as for all women between the ages of 15 and 49. Surveys of pregnant women visiting health clinics are the basis for most estimates of HIV prevalence in Africa, home to more than 25 million of the estimated 39 million people infected with HIV worldwide.

But the method has been criticised by some African countries for exaggerating the spread of HIV/Aids on the continent. Debate flared in Kenya last year, where the United Nations aids agency, UNAids, was accused of inflating the numbers infected.

Thabo Mbeki, the South African president, has also questioned the severity of the HIV/Aids epidemic in the country, angering health campaigners.