Despite 600 people dying every day in South Africa of Aids-related illness, President Thabo Mbeki says he does not know of anyone close to him who has succumbed to Aids.
But according to the "Castro Hlongwane" document, his spokesperson, Parks Mankahlana, died after taking anti-retroviral drugs.
Mbeki, who has been severely criticised for his dealings with Aids denialists, told the Washington Post he knew of no person who had died of Aids.
In an interview in New York, where he was attending the opening of the United Nations General Assembly, Mbeki talked expansively about Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe, the Bush administration's Iraq policy and South Africa's Aids crisis.
One in 10 South Africans - about 5,3 million people - is infected with HIV, according to government statistics. Mbeki said, however, no one close to him had died from the disease.
"Personally, I don't know anybody who has died of Aids," Mbeki said. Asked whether he knew anyone with HIV, he added quietly: "I really, honestly don't."
Few countries have as tangled a history with the Aids virus as South Africa does.
Mbeki refused for years to recognise the link between HIV and Aids and long denied the value of anti-retroviral drugs. Mbeki said, however, his government was days away from completing a study about how to make anti-retroviral drugs more available to Aids patients.
Specialists are studying guidelines from the United States National Institutes of Health and have begun to conclude that South Africa is badly unprepared for the crisis.
The country "does not have the health infrastructure to make these drugs available to whoever needs them", said Mbeki.
The study was considering proposals to concentrate treatment programmes at teaching hospitals, he said.
"Because of the nature and sensitivity of these drugs, it's important that the people who dispense them and supervise their use must be specially trained. You can't just give them to some doctor or nurse," Mbeki said.