JOHANNESBURG (AFP) - Ndumeso Gamede lost his father and then his mother the following year to HIV, just as the disease deprived many South Africans of their loved ones for the same reason in the mid-2000s.

Since that stage, medicines and treatments have contributed to controlling the crisis, but the results of this "generation of the dead" still exist.

Gamideh, 28, who became a rapper and had to raise his younger siblings since he was thirteen, points to pictures of his parents hanging on a dimly lit wall in his garage in the poor town of Vsloros, about thirty kilometers from Johannesburg.

"They were both HIV-positive, and their deaths had an almost devastating effect on me," he tells AFP, lamenting that he had "no one" to guide and advise him when he was a teenager.

Ghamidih, who escaped drugs and crime, says music saved him.

South Africa still has one of the highest rates in the world of people living with HIV, whose global day falls on December 1, as they amount to 13.7 percent of the total population, but more than 5.4 million are among About 8.2 million infected people are taking antiretrovirals, which has greatly reduced the death rate.

"The number of children orphaned by AIDS has decreased" as a result of taking antiretrovirals, says Agnes Mokoto, who runs a program for the NGO Networking HIV in Cape Town.

The Joint United Nations Program on HIV notes that the number of these children decreased from 1.9 million in 2009 to 960 thousand in 2021. The gap in the age pyramid caused by the spread of the virus led to the formation of a generation of deceased, especially young parents. .

“In the difficult days of the turn of the millennium, people were dying en masse, creating an army of orphans,” says Dr Linda-Gail Becker of the Desmond Tutu HIV Foundation.

Ndomeso's parents died some 15 years ago, during the most difficult period of the crisis. At that point, the virus experienced rapid spread because the country's then-president, Thabo Mbeki, did not acknowledge the existence of the crisis, which led to a delay in the widespread distribution of antiretroviral drugs.

A Harvard University study stated that more than 330,000 people died as a result of mismanagement practiced by Mbeki and the Minister of Health at the time, who was dubbed "Doctor Beetroot" because she recommended the use of boiled lemon as a treatment.

And Vice President David Mabuza notes that the South African government, despite the progress made, "remains concerned about the high rates of infection," especially "among adolescent girls and young women."

Sex with older men called "Sugar Daddy" is a major reason for this prevalence, in addition to the very high unemployment rate (33.9%).

These women often do not receive "adequate healthcare" due to the stigma attached to the virus, says Sipongil Tshabalala, director of the Treatment Action Campaign, pointing to nurses blaming young women for asking for condoms or wanting to be tested.

The Gamedeh brothers lived in seclusion because AIDS is a taboo or embarrassing topic in South Africa. When both parents died, their mother's family abandoned them. "They didn't want to know what we needed," says Ghamidih.

The brothers' neighbors provided food for them, while Ndumeso found work in a fast food restaurant, but his salary was "not enough" to support the family. His two younger brothers, one of whom is a drug addict, live in shacks nearby.

His parents did not receive appropriate treatment due to the stigma either. Their infection with the virus should have been hidden. "If they had received proper treatment, one of them would have survived," Ghamidih said.

On the other hand, other AIDS orphans must fight to obtain official papers.

Nonhlanhla Mazalini, who runs a shelter in west Johannesburg, says she takes care of "21 undocumented HIV-positive young men and women" because they have been abandoned by their large families.

"The shelter houses a blind young man who we took in when he was two years old. He is now 24, he has no job and he cannot claim social assistance because he does not have official papers," she added.

Ndumeso had just become a father, with a gray cradle near his bed and a foam mattress on the floor.

On his computer, he proudly shows AFP his latest video.

He is currently looking for a job, but the matter is complicated because he does not have any academic degree. If AIDS had not killed his father, he would have had "opportunities," he says.

"Life wouldn't have been like this," he concludes.