July 2001 Africa News Headlines

Monday, July 16, 2001 - Web posted at 10:13:24 GMT

Wife to receive R1m from husband who gave her HIV

JOHANNESBURG - A Johannesburg High Court has ordered a man to pay his wife nearly R1 million in damages for infecting her with HIV, the Sunday Times reported.

This is the first time in South Africa a woman has claimed damages after her husband wilfully infected her with the virus.

Last week, High Court acting Judge Naren Pandya awarded the Durban housewife R958 689 for "pain and suffering and the mental anguish and the progressive loss of the amenities of life", as well as medical expenses, the paper said.

The woman has not been named as she has a 13-year-old child.

She met her businessman husband in 1995 while on holiday in Mozambique and two months later she and her child went to live with him there.

In March 1998 they married.

The woman said he was sick from the start of the relationship but that she did not suspect AIDS.

She said that he went for an emergency operation in August 1998 and was toldhe had full-blown Aids, but he still did not tell her.

Two weeks later, the specialist called both of them to see him and asked her if her husband had told her of his Aids status.

She discovered then that at the time they first met he knew he was HIV-positive.

- Nampa-Sapa

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