South Africa’s anticipated crisis of two-million Aids orphans by 2015 could be halved if the government sticks to its promise to rollout anti-Aids drugs, according to Department of Social Development projections.
Last week, the Cabinet told the Department of Health to develop a detailed operational plan for antiretrovirals within two months in what signalled a massive shift in the government’s approach to pandemic.
The social development department’s chief director of population and development, Jacques van Zuydam, said on Thursday the move could slash an expected leap in the numbers of Aids orphans by providing life-prolonging medication to their mothers.
Experts predicted that two-million children under 15 years would lose their mothers by 2015 — a massive increase from current figures of 600 000 maternal orphans as the number of Aids deaths rise.
However, the projection was based on the non-availability of anti-retrovirals for HIV-Aids infected South Africans.
”Our expectation is that antiretroviral intervention, if there is 100% roll-out, will put that figure at one-million,” he said.
A leap from 600 000 to one-million was still ”a massive growth”, but an excited van Zuydam said the intervention could mean that one-million people might grow up in a family environment.
South Africa is believed to have the highest number of HIV-positive people in the world with 4-7 million infections. The recent South African Aids conference in Durban heard that the country had 600 new HIV infections a day.
Van Zuydam said the pandemic had grossly inflated the number of orphans in the country.
”It is a 100% more than it would be in the absence of Aids — we should have 300 000 maternal orphans but HIV-Aids accounts for the rest.”
Last year, in the Eastern Cape for instance, 12 440 orphans were identified in less than four months by social workers and volunteers in Qumbu, Tsolo and Umtata.
Van Zuydam said the province probably had around 100 000 of the 600 000 orphans in the country, but exact figures could be determined only once Census 2001 data was released.
Without anti-retrovirals, the province was expected to have nearly 200 000 Aids orphans in 2010.
Non-Aids orphans were expected to total only a further 45 000 in comparison, according to a report published by poverty alleviation NGO Care, the Medical Research Council, and the Actuarial Society of SA. – Sapa