The South African government has issued a draft policy document designed to prevent students and teachers with AIDS from being discriminated against.

Schools will no longer be allowed to deny admission to people who are HIV positive and will be required to provide the best education possible to students who become too ill to attend classes.

South Africa has the fastest growing AIDS epidemic in the world, with fifteen-hundred new infections every day.

A BBC corrspondent says discrimination against sufferers is widespread.

The anti-discrimination policy in schools is the South African government's first, but it is formulating others.

The World Health Organisation says southern Africa as a whole will be devastated by AIDS in the next decade, with many countries in the region losing more than one fifth of their populations to the disease.