The Coast Province has been particularly affected by the world-wide pandemic.

Coast Provincial Medical Officer Dr. S. K. Shariff has reported that Kwale District is the worst hit area - where 25 per cent of the district's population is now HIV-positive.

In Malindi, twenty per cent are also infected with A.I.D.S., followed by Mombasa with fifteen per cent and Kilifi with twelve per cent.

Lamu has the least number of A.I.D.S. cases with just eight per cent.

Addressing a seminar on 'Reproductive Health, A.I.D.S. and Drug Abuse' at the Islamic College in Mombasa, Dr. Shariff said wife inheritance, poverty and alcoholism have contributed to the spread of the disease in the province.

He explained that some ignorant men in Kwale District continued to inherit widows whose husbands had died of  A.I.D.S.