An unexpected dimension of the HIV-Aids pandemic has been the high infection-rate among teachers in this country.

An unexpected dimension of the HIV-Aids pandemic has been the high infection-rate among teachers in this country.

Since teachers come from communities already reeling from Aids-related illnesses, it would have been unrealistic to expect them to remain unaffected by the ravages of the pandemic.

HIV-Aids has destroyed the lives of millions throughout the world in the past two decades.

But the most shocking dimension to the pandemic has been the link between poor salaries of teachers and the high infection rates drawn by Olive Shisana, chief executive of the Human Sciences Research Council.

Last week, Shisana was quoted as saying that "poorly paid female teachers are forced to have multiple sexual partners to survive".

This development is both shocking and an indictment of the government's failure to heed a long-standing grievance over low teacher salaries.