AEGiS-IRIN: AIDS Expected to Claim 10 Million Southern Africans By 2015

Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2001. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.

AIDS Expected to Claim 10 Million Southern Africans By 2015

UN Integrated Regional Information Networks - September 15, 2001

African economies could be devastated by the 10 million AIDS deaths forecast for southern Africa over the next 15 years, researchers warned this week. African Eye News Service reported that according to Southern African Development Community {SADC} researchers, crucial human development projects were already suffering as a result of the drain on financial and other resources in southern Africa.

The SADC's Regional Human Development Report for 2000, released in Swaziland this week, estimated that the potential loss of 6,3 million lives from 1995 to 2005 would slash the gross domestic product (GDP) in countries across the region. Zambia's GDP had, for example, already fallen by an estimated nine percent in 2000 as a direct result of HIV/AIDS, it said. The number of AIDS victims rose sharply after the first cases were identified in Zambia in 1984.

By 1995 there were 200,000 reported incidents of HIV/AIDS a year, which doubled by the following year, according to the report. In 1997 there were over one million reported cases, 70,000 of which were children. According to the report, the average life expectancy for people living in SADC countries calculated between 1990 and 1998 had dropped significantly. In Botswana where you could previously expect to live to the age of 77, you could now expect to love until 68. Zimbabwe's life expectancy dropped by 12 years from 70 to 58, South Africa lost 8 years, dropping from 71 to 63, while Zambia's life expectancy declined by 8 years from 51 to 43. The report also indicated that the World Bank's estimates for HIV/AIDS-related deaths in Swaziland were too low.

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