Reports have emerged that confirmed HIV positive South Africans who volunteer to be marked near their genital area with a tattoo depicting their status, will in addition to free counselling and medication be paid an equivalent of 50 000 Rands (N840,000).
This is reportedly in accordance with a new bill signed by President Jacob Zuma.
Local South African media has reportedly lauded the move as as one of the greatest steps in the history of combating the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the country.
Zuma who has reportedly volunteered to be the first South African citizen to get his HIV status stamped near his genitals, however announced that only the first 10 million positive people to volunteer to the tattooing would be given the money in form of a funeral expense voucher.
The South African president who faced charges of raping an HIV-positive family friend, and was ridiculed for testifying that he took a shower after sex to lower the risk of infection with HIV said of the bill:
“The mark is to protect those who can’t say no to sex. I mean if you can’t read between the lines you should read between the legs because that’s where the status would be tatted. The choice to be HIV positive is now in your hands or your genitals for that matter…. We also encourage those who had been living with the virus to go to the nearest public hospitals to get their status tatted in”
South Africa has the world’s highest HIV caseload and premature deaths of 300,000 people, and the government which is bent on helping millions of South Africans infected with the deadly virus, distributes life-prolonging anti-retroviral drugs to infected people
