HIV/Aids was expected to slash 12-million off South Africa’s population growth by 2015, the University of South Africa’s Bureau of Market Research (BMR) said on Monday.
In the absence of HIV/Aids, South Africa’s population would have totalled 61-million by 2015, but due to the effects of the virus it was now expected to grow to about 49-million by that time, according to the findings of a study by BMR economic demographer Prof Carel van Aardt.
In five years’ time, HIV prevalence would average between 25 and 30%.
About 40% of adult deaths in the calendar years 2000 and 2001 were Aids-related, compared to nine percent in 1995 and 1996, he said.
On the basis of the results of 12 national studies done since 1996, Van Aardt used a projection model in an effort to predict what the situation over the next few years would be.
He said he had selected only studies done by very credible institutions and for which representative test samples and more or less similar methodologies had been used.
Van Aardt cited the Medical Research Council’s (MRC) report of 2001, which estimated that 40% of the deaths of those aged between 15 and 49 in 2000 were due to Aids.
Statistics SA repudiated this finding, and undertook its own study at the instruction of Cabinet. According to Stats SA’s mortality report, released in November 2002, 8,7% of all deaths in the previous year were HIV/Aids-related, compared to 4,6% in 1997. It found that 22,5% of deaths of 15-to-29-year-old women — and 8,5% of men in the same age group — from 1997 to 2001 were due to Aids.
In December last year, the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC), in conjunction with the Nelson Mandela Foundation, released the results of its study, which was based on saliva tests from 8 428 participants.
Among the HSRC’s findings was that the Free State, and not KwaZulu-Natal, as previously found, had the highest HIV prevalence rate.
The most recent antenatal clinic survey indicated that 33,5% of pregnant women attending government clinics in KwaZulu-Natal were infected, making it the province with the highest infection rate.
The HSRC, however, estimated that the highest rate was in the Free State (14,9%), followed by Gauteng (14,7%), Mpumalanga (14,1%) and KwaZulu-Natal (11,7%).
Van Aardt said the HSRC study was completely different from other studies.
”There was no way I could verify it. The HSRC study appears to be strange in a number of ways.”
In his study, Van Aardt estimated that in the age group 15 to 49 years about 500 000 people in Gauteng and 350 000 in KwaZulu-Natal would have died due to Aids-related diseases by 2006.
The virus would also have a significant effect on life expectancy, he said.
He projected that due to HIV/Aids, life expectancy at birth by 2010 would be 33 years in KwaZulu-Natal and 34 years in Mpumalanga. The study looked at the impact of the virus on the different living standard measure (LSM) groups in South Africa. These groups range from LSM1, the poorest, to LSM10, the wealthiest.
”In 2001 about 19% of LSM 1 and about 18% of LSM 2 and LSM 3 members were HIV-positive.”
The corresponding figures for LSM 9 and 10 were five and 2,5% respectively, the BMR statement said.
”It was also evident that the bulk of HIV-positive people in the various LSMs in 2001 were still in the early phases of the HIV/Aids life cycle.
”By 2008, HIV prevalence rates in the different LSMs are anticipated to grow by 25 to 30% on average, and the bulk of the HIV-positive population in the various LSMs will be in the later phases of the HIV/Aids life cycle.” – Sapa