Oxford, England (CNN) -- Singer-songwriter Annie Lennox proudly wears an "HIV Positive" black T-shirt, proclaiming her solidarity with the disease's victims, even though her status is HIV negative.
"I constantly want to bring attention to the issue," says Lennox. "This is my way of campaigning visually".
At the TED Global conference last month in Oxford, England, Lennox made clear in a talk and an interview with CNN.com that she is seriously committed to combating the spread of the disease.
She was inspired by Nelson Mandela's statement of support in 2003 for the effort to fight the virus by the 46664 Foundation, named after Mandela's number in prison.
South Africa was losing 1,000 people a day to AIDS, many of them women and children. Mandela compared the death toll to genocide.
"I'm a woman, and I'm a mother, I told myself that this is something that I have to talk about," Lennox said.
In her talk at the conference attended by about 700 people, she told the story of a seven-year-old girl in South Africa suffering from the disease and weighing about what a one-year-old child weighs.
After the girl was treated and put on a special diet by doctors, she recovered, looking like a child her age. "The hair on my arms is standing," Lennox, said as she showed before and after photos of the girl. "Isn't it extraordinary?" CNN
