Jan 6, 10:13 AM (ET)
By John Chiahemen

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - South Africa's Nelson Mandela, one of Africa's most
committed campaigners in the battle against AIDS, announced that his only
surviving son had succumbed to the disease on Thursday.

Makgatho Mandela, 54, died in a Johannesburg clinic where he had been
receiving treatment for more than a month. His wife Zondi died in 2003 from
pneumonia.

"I announce that my son has died of AIDS," the 86-year-old Nobel Peace
laureate told a news conference, urging a redoubled fight against the
disease.

"Let us give publicity to HIV/AIDS and not hide it, because the only way to
make it appear like a normal illness like TB, like cancer, is always to come
out and to say somebody has died because of HIV/AIDS. And people will stop
regarding it as something extraordinary," said a frail-looking Mandela,
surrounded by his grandchildren and other family members.

Mandela's announcement of his personal AIDS tragedy challenged the
widespread taboo which keeps many Africans from discussing an epidemic which
now infects more than 25 million people across the continent.

In South Africa, which with some five million HIV/AIDS infections has the
highest AIDS caseload in the world, the disease kills more than 600 people
each day, activists say.

Despite the mounting death toll, few public figures in South Africa or other
African countries have personally come forward to say that AIDS has affected
them or their families.

Deaths from the disease are usually attributed to a "long illness,"
pneumonia, or other secondary causes.

Veteran opposition leader Mangosuthu Buthelezi of the Inkatha Freedom Party
helped to break the silence last year when he announced that two of his
children had died from AIDS-related causes.

FIRST SON DIED IN CAR CRASH

Mandela lost his first son, Madiba Thembekile, in a car crash in 1969 while
Mandela was still in prison for his efforts to end white rule in South
Africa. The apartheid government denied him permission to attend that
funeral.

Mandela, who looks increasingly frail in his public appearances, has
suffered a string of personal losses over the last several years. He buried
Makgatho's mother, his first wife Evelyn Mase, in 2004 and attended the
funeral for Makgatho's wife Zondi following her death.

In 2003, Mandela led South Africa in mourning for his African National
Congress comrade Walter Sisulu, whose death at age 90 left Mandela almost
alone among the elder generation of leaders who helped end apartheid and
bring multi-racial democracy to South Africa in 1994.

Mandela had canceled several holiday engagements over the past month to
remain close to his ailing son. He has several daughters from his marriages
including two from his second wife Winnie Madikizela-Mandela.

Mandela officially retired from public life last year, but has nevertheless
kept up a busy schedule promoting his various causes -- chief among them
fight against South Africa's devastating AIDS epidemic.

Makgatho Mandela was a lawyer with a background in insurance who kept a
relatively low profile. He had been married twice and had three sons, all of
whom appeared with Mandela as he announced the cause of their father's
death.