JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - South Africa's President Jacob Zuma, who has faced criticism that his love life is undermining safe sex campaigns, revealed test results on Sunday showing he was HIV negative.
Zuma, who has three wives, has generated controversy by fathering a child out of wedlock and admitting to having unprotected sex with an HIV-positive woman.
Critics have accused Zuma of taking a cavalier attitude to safe sex that is damaging government health campaigns in a country with one of the world's highest rates of HIV/AIDS.
"After careful consideration, I have decided to share my test results with South Africans," Zuma said at the launch of HIV/AIDS campaign at Natalspruit Hospital, east of Johannesburg.
"My April results, like the three previous ones, registered a negative outcome for the HI virus," he said.
South Africa has one of the world's heaviest HIV rates and has been accused by activists of dragging its feet on the disease which kills an estimated 1,000 people there every day.
At least 5.7 million of South Africa's 50 million population are infected.
Reuters Africa
