Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 1999. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 1999. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
Reuters NewMedia - Monday June 28, 1999
South Africa has six percent of the global population but carries 10 percent of the burden of HIV infection with an estimated 3.5 million sufferers. Unlike many other countries with a high rate of HIV infection, the epidemic arrived in South Africa relatively late. Before 1987, HIV infection was rare.
"The migrant labor system and high levels of other sexually transmitted diseases are factors that are enhancing the transmission of HIV and fuelling this explosive epidemic," said Quarraisha Abdool Karim of the Center for Epidemiological Research in Durban, South Africa.
In an editorial in the medical journal Sexually Transmitted Infections, Karim blamed previous governments for failing to implement prevention programs, and said the epidemic was spreading most rapidly among young women.
HIV infection in South African women aged 20-24 more than trebled from 6.9 percent in 1992 to 21.1 percent in 1994.
Female migrant workers were 2.4 times more at risk of HIV infection than women who worked in one place, while male migrant workers were 7.3 times more at risk than other men.
Many HIV-positive people are not aware they are infected until they develop symptoms of other opportunistic diseases, which take hold because the body's immune system is suppressed.
Tuberculosis is the most common HIV-related disease in South Africa.
"The new, democratically elected government, while committed to addressing the HIV epidemic, has to date also been unable to mount a response of the scale and magnitude required to turn the epidemic around," Karim said.
"While the focus must continue to be on preventing new HIV infections, strategies to deal with the increasing burden of HIV related diseases and AIDS as well as the impact of the premature loss of lives must be developed."
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