Statement follows alarming assessments that about 60% of SA's soldiers could have the disease.

Cape Town - All members of the SA National Defence Force (SANDF) are to be tested for HIV/AIDS and the incidence of infection among soldiers will be made public, Defence Minister Mosiuoa Lekota said yesterday.

Lekota's announcement follows alarming assessments that as many as 60% of the country's soldiers could be HIV positive, and therefore unfit for deployment, particularly in international peacekeeping roles. The defence department has insisted that there is no specific information on the matter, and therefore it was assumed that the incidence in the military mirrored the national incidence of 22%.

Lekota, in reply to a parliamentary question from his African National Congress (ANC) colleague Thandi Modise, said that in the absence of scientific data he believed that the infection rate in the military was 22%.

He noted: "We are about to launch a comprehensive assessment, which means that we will test all the members of the SANDF. We don't have to make known the status of individuals; we do need to know what the status of our members are and we will make that known."

The task of testing all members of the SANDF will be a massive one, consisting as it does of about 70000 members. The cost of the exercise will vary according to which method of testing is used. It also raises the question of whether or not the constitutional right to privacy of SANDF members will be violated.

Modise had asked whether or not the defence force had conducted studies to determine the incidence of HIV/AIDS among its members, and what strategies were developed for the "mustering" of those affected.

Lekota replied that "subject to the state of health of a member of the SANDF, we deploy them where they are deployable as long as their health allows".

"In so far as the question of deploying abroad is concerned, it is important that we are not seen to be contributing to the spreading of a condition. We will have to deploy our members domestically, but generally when we deploy members abroad we will encourage our troops that we send G1K1 (troops) absolutely healthy. But otherwise we may not discriminate against any member of the SANDF."

Democratic Party MP Phillip Schalkwyk said that an article in the African Defence Review suggested that the infection rate was double Lekota's 22% estimate. He said this was most alarming particularly because they would come mainly from the ranks of younger soldiers.

Lekota insisted that the SA Military Health Service "has never yet conducted what you might call a scientific study to establish exactly what the level of HIV/AIDS in the defence force is. Nobody has been in a position to do this."

He said that each time there had been an international exercise, all the members deployed had been tested and the results did not indicate 44%.

He cautioned that unfounded assertions should not be believed, because they undermined the standing of the SANDF, the morale of its members and the confidence of the nation.

With acknowledgements to Wyndham Hartley and Business Day.