Jane Elliott BBC News Online Health Staff

Nurse Mpho Sebanyoni was so worried by the plight of Aids patients in South Africa that she quit her nursing post to care for them.

She used to have a good job in the hospital where she was earning a living wage.

And she admits that her friends labelled her "mad" for quitting her post to become a nomadic Aids carer.

Lots of people were rejected, people were too scared to look after them

Mpho Sebanyoni

Now she walks from village to village caring for the sick and teaching their relatives and friends how to care for them and educating them about Aids - sometimes she walks as many as 25km a day.

"I decided to leave my job and start working in this way because I was worried about the young people who were being discharged from hospital with no one to care for them and I thought who is going to care for them.

"When I first started I came across some horrific cases.

Scared

"People did not understand what HIV/Aids was.

"I want to do more, but I don't have transport to get to them. We are working very hard to train volunteers."

This sick grandmother had to care for seven children

In one village Mpho, who was recently named South Africa's woman of the year for health, found a 27-year-old Aids patient who had been left in a bicycle shed to die.

His family did not want to know him and by the time Mpho found him he was covered with maggot infested sores.

Mpho cared for him for his last three months, dressing his wounds, clothing him and getting him blankets to keep him warm.

Mpho then cared for him for three months until he died.

Grandmother

She also cared for a sick grandmother whose feet had swollen to four times their size and could barely move.

Yet despite her illness the grandmother was still expected to care for her seven grandchildren whose parents' had died from Aids.

The oldest of the seven children had tried to commit suicide two weeks before but Mpho talked her out of it.

The second girl was working as a prostitute in order to feed the family.

They are all now being cared for by the UK based charity Hope and Homes for Children, which helps with funding for orphaned children through their own families and communities.

Mpho said that although the people of South Africa are becoming more understanding about HIV/Aids that there is still a lot more work that needs to be done.

Mpho also created the Moretele Sunrise Hospice, a home-care project based in Temba, in the North Western Province of South Africa, offering facilities to 78 of the surrounding villages.

Mpho and her 32 volunteer also give family members training in the basic home care.

The hospice teaches aromatherapy and reflexology and naturopathy so that families who can't afford medicines can take advantage of natural medicines found in their environment.

When patients die Mpho encourages other family members to foster any orphaned children.