In 2000 a World AIDS conference was held in Durban. It was attended by some 12 000 international HIV/AIDS experts and activists. After the president addressed the audience, a frail little boy with a jacket much too big for him took over the microphone. His speech silenced the audience immediately.

“Accept us – we are all human beings!”
– Nkosi Johnson (1989-2001), in July 2000, speaking to the delegates at the World AIDS Conference in Durban:

Hi, my name is Nkosi Johnson. I am 11 years old and I have full-blown AIDS. I was born HIV-positive . . .
When I was two years old, I was living in a care centre for HIV/AIDS-infected people. My mommy was obviously also infected and could not afford to keep me because she was very scared that the community she lived in would find out that we were both infected and chased us away. I know she loved me very much and would visit me when she could. And then the care centre has to close down because they didn’t have any funds. So my foster mother, Gail Johnson, who was a director of the care centre and had taken me home for weekends, said at a board meeting she would take me home. . .

I know my blood is only dangerous to other people if they also have an open wound and my blood goes into it. That is the only time that people need to be careful when touching me. In 1997, just before I started school, my mommy Daphne died. Mommy Gail told me almost immediately my mommy had died and I burst into tears. My mommy Gail took me to my mommy’s funeral . . . Ever since the funeral, I have been missing my mommy lots and I wish she was with me, but I know she is in heaven. And she is on my shoulder watching over me and in my heart.

I hate having AIDS because I get very sick and I get very sad when I think of all the other children and babies that are sick with AIDS. I wish that the government can start giving AZT [one of the antiretroviral/ARV medications] to pregnant mothers who are infected by HIV to help stop the virus being passed on to their babies. Babies are dying very quickly and I know one little abandoned baby who came to stay with us and his name was Mickey. He couldn’t breathe, he couldn’t eat and he was so sick and mommy Gail had to phone welfare to have him admitted to a hospital and he died.
But he was such a cute little baby and I think the government must start doing it because I don’t want babies to die . . .

When I grow up, I want to lecture to more and more people about AIDS – and if mommy Gail will let me, around the whole country. I want people to understand about AIDS – to be careful and to respect AIDS. You can’t get AIDS if you touch, hug, kiss, hold hands with someone who is infected.
Care for us and accept us – we are all human beings.
We are normal. We have hands. We have feet. We can walk, we can talk, we have needs just like everyone else – don’t be afraid of us. We are all the same!

Prolonged applause greeted Nkosi’s speech. A few months after the international media had broadcast his message to the world from Durban, Nkosi became seriously ill. He died on 1 June 2001, having just turned twelve. His foster mother is continuing with her work for mothers and children suffering from AIDS-related diseases. In Johannesburg the Nkosi Home, named after him, has been built and provides shelter to many children and their mothers (website: www.nkosi.iafrica.com).

Meanwhile it does begin to look as if Nkosi Johnson’s message and the efforts of many international, national and local health initiatives as well as patient organizations are starting to deliver results. Early in 2004 the South African government changed its former AIDS policy by announcing a countrywide programme making anti-retroviral treatment (ART) available without cost for all patients who cannot afford to pay for it. This has provided a glimmer of hope for millions of people, also in other African countries.