Up to half of Malawi’s professional workforce could die of HIV/Aids by 2005, the World Bank has said in a report timed to coincide with the opening of a major conference in Kenya on the pandemic in Africa.
Professionals in the education and health sectors are particulary affected in the impoverished Southern African country, as are members of the army and the police, the study says.
Malawi’s National Statistical Office estimates that 139 Malawians die of HIV/Aids every day, mostly in the economically productive 15 to 49 age group.
An estimated one million Malawians are living with HIV, out of a total population of 11-million. About 250 are infected each day.
At least 70% of Malawi’s hospital beds are occupied by HIV/Aids patients.
HIV/Aids has cut Malawi’s life expectancy to just 36, according to the United Nations Development Programme.
In the Kenyan capital Nairobi, the 13th International Conference on Aids and Sexually Transmitted Infections in Africa opened, gathering about 8 000 doctors, researchers, policy-makers and grassroots activists to look at the impact of and find ways to tackle the pandemic on the continent. — Sapa-AFP