Why is Nelson Mandela’s health a state secret?

When President Jacob Zuma reassures a journalist, as he did last week, that Nelson Mandela’s condition is improving slightly, the entire world sighs with relief. Yet it has become hard to get trustworthy information about the man the world most admires.

Mandela’s wife Graça doesn’t seem to be so involved in the key decisions about him any more. Instead, the occasional morsels of information which the world eagerly seizes on come largely from politicians. More strangely still, the South African government hasn’t let anyone know which hospital is treating him. In December, when he was being treated in Pretoria, an elaborate official deception allowed the South African and international press to believe he was in one particular hospital, when in fact he was in an entirely different one.

At one point a leading ANC official even appeared in front of the cameras outside the wrong hospital and gave the impression that he had just seen him.