State morgues are extending their hours to cope with Zimbabwe's soaring death rate, mostly as a result of AIDS. An estimated 3,000 people now die every week in the southern African country, nearly 70 percent of them from AIDS-related illnesses.

Harare's main hospital will now staff its morgue around the clock and other hospital mortuary facilities will extend closing time by four hours to 8 p.m., the state-controlled newspaper quoted health authorities as saying. Families of the dead also were being asked to remove corpses within 24 hours of death to reduce overcrowding in morgues, the paper said. The National AIDS Coordination Program estimates that more than 80,000 Zimbabweans will die from AIDS-related illnesses this year. The World Health Organization says some 25 percent of Zimbabwe's 12.5 million people are infected with the virus that causes AIDS.

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