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South African Man Must Pay Wife HIV Damages

Originally published by Reuters, July 16, 2001

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) — The South African High Court has ordered a man to pay his wife nearly one million rand in damages for infecting her with HIV, a newspaper reported on Sunday.

The Sunday Times said acting judge Naren Pandya had awarded a Durban housewife 958,689 rand (US$116,400) for pain and suffering, in the first case ever in which a married woman had claimed damages after her husband intentionally infected her with the AIDS virus.

The woman, who was not named, met her future husband, a businessman, while on holiday in Mozambique in 1995 and they married 3 years later. She said her husband, who was sick from the time they met, had kept his HIV status a secret from her.

South Africa has one of the highest rates of AIDS infections, with one in nine of its population estimated to be HIV positive.