Special Assignment is proud to broadcast a fine documentary by award-winning journalist Sorious Samura. Over the years Sorious has travelled the African continent, reporting on many of the major issues of our times. Viewers will remember his shocking exposé of the terrible atrocities committed in the civil war in his native country Sierra Leone.

In Living with AIDS Sorious visits a small hospital in Zambia. Lewanika Hospital in Mongu, is like many other hospitals in sub-Saharan Africa: over half the patients are infected with HIV/AIDS. To bring viewers up close with the everyday reality of AIDS in Africa, Sorious worked for a month as an orderly there, swabbing floors, washing patients, even preparing the dead for burial.

The documentary gives us an extraordinary insight into what it is like to be infected with AIDS in Africa, for women and men, for adults and children. Samura finds that AIDS has found its "perfect victims" in Africa, where poverty, sexual taboos and the stigma attached to HIV, all conspire to create a ready breeding ground for the disease. But what most disturbs him is meeting HIV-infected men who see nothing wrong with continuing to have unprotected sex.

Living with AIDS is a powerful story about ordinary people. Some viewers may consider some scenes in it difficult to watch. Viewer discretion is advised.

phone: 27 11 714 6757
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e-mail: truth@sabc.co.za

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