A United Nations AIDS expert has warned that South Africa faces an unprecedented crisis because of the rapid spread of the HIV virus there.

Speaking on the eve of World Aids Daythe expert, Doctor Peter Piot, said more than fifteen-hundred new infections were occuring in South Africa every day; by the first decade of the new millenium, more than a quarter of the population is expected to have contracted HIV, with life expectancy dropping twenty years from sixty-eight to forty-eight.

The South African government has announced a multi-million dollar campaign to raise awareness about the virus, as concern grows over the social and economic effects its spread is likely to have on the country's future.

In Sub-Saharan Africa two-million people will have died of AIDS this year -- four times the total for the rest of the world.