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Does this give the phrase “Come and play” new meaning?

South Africa’s Sesame Street Gets HIV+ Muppet
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CAPE TOWN (Reuters) – South Africa’s version of “Sesame Street” welcomed a fluffy five-year-old orphan living with HIV on Tuesday in the government’s latest initiative to stem the AIDS pandemic ravaging the country and the continent.
Education Minister Kader Asmal hugged Kami, a lively bear-like Muppet with a passion for nature, after her public debut at Cape Town’s Groote Schuur Hospital, the only one in the country offering drug therapy for children with AIDS.
Guests saw a snippet of the first show in which Kami is invited to join the familiar “Sesame Street” characters at play.
“You’re beautiful,” says Zikwe, the big, blue, gravelly voiced kingpin of the television show.
Asmal said the character would join the local “Takalani Sesame” show on South African television from September 30 to help children infected with or affected by HIV/AIDS to understand the disease.
Takalani means “be happy” in the local Venda language and Kami’s name is derived from the Tswana word for “acceptance.”
“Sesame Street” is a pre-school television show based on the popular Muppets series and designed to help children prepare for school.
“Education is the only socially acceptable vaccine available to our people and represents our only hope to save our nation,” Asmal said in an address to sponsors and partners in the project.
“We can’t continue to have HIV positive children isolated, demonized, victimized. We want to make all of our children feel comfortable,” he said.
Local AIDS activists say President Thabo Mbeki has undermined the campaign against the disease by questioning the link between HIV and AIDS.
The state unsuccessfully fought demands for drugs to limit mother-to-child transmission to the country’s highest court.
Drugs to control the disease are freely available to those with medical insurance, but there is no state-funded anti-retroviral program for adults or children living with HIV-AIDS.
The state-owned Groote Schuur hospital runs a foreign-funded pilot program treating children with AIDS.
MUPPET SPARKS CONTROVERSY
Karen Gruenberg, vice-president for content of the U.S.-based Sesame Workshop told Reuters that reports last year of plans to introduce the character in the United States were exaggerated.
“There are currently no plans to bring Kami to the United States. I am not saying there is no need, but in terms of addressing the community of childcare providers and the department of education we’ve been dealing with other issues there,” she said.
A group of Republican members of the U.S. Congress expressed concern about reports that an HIV positive Muppet was to be introduced to the U.S. show, but USAID director Dirk Dijkerman said they had backed the plan to introduce Kami in South Africa.
“When it crystallized, everybody said this is the right thing to do at this time,” he said, adding that the U.S. aid agency had spent or promised $8.2 million on the South African project.
The United Nations has estimated that 2.3 million people died of AIDS-related illnesses in Africa last year, leaving hundreds of thousands of children orphaned.
The United Nations believes 28.1 million of the 40 million people living with HIV/AIDS are in Africa and 4.8 million are in South Africa, where one in nine is infected.
Yvonne Kgame, general manager for education at the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC), said HIV/AIDS would become part of the environment on the South African show, but not its focus.
Kgame said Kami would explain that she was born with HIV and that she has no parents, but lives with a loving foster mother.