ZIMBABWE'S military top brass is studying a South African programme to put HIV positive troops back in full service.

The South African government has published operational guidance for deploying HIV positive soldiers which it says "removes discrimination".

The framework was developed after the government lost a court battle against a group of HIV positive soldiers, who claimed they were being discriminated against in July 2008.

Now it has emerged Zimbabwean officials are also caught in a similar quandary over how to handle the matter.

Ndivhuwo Wa Ha Mabaya, a spokesman for South Africa's Defence Ministry said: "The framework is being studied by the Southern African Development Community, the African Union and the United Nations. We were consulting them while we developed the framework and they were never negative about it.

"Zimbabwe already said they wanted our framework, as they had the same problem as ours."

A BBC report earlier this month claimed that 30% of the soldiers in the South African National Defence Force were infected with HIV. The army has already deployed an HIV positive soldier to Sudan as part of peacekeeping operations in the troubled territory of Darfur, the BBC reported.

In Zimbabwe, a UNAIDS survey undertaken in 1999 showed that 55 percent of the then 36,000-strong army were HIV-positive.

"In the military, young and socially inexperienced people are recruited and trained to be fearless and aggressive. While this is good for war situations, research shows that the youthful soldiers carry this approach into civilian life and into their private sexual interactions," the report noted.