Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2000. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.

Reuters NewMedia - Tuesday November 21, 2000
Steven Swindells

President Thabo Mbeki has courted controversy by questioning the causal link between HIV and AIDS. Antiretroviral drugs such as AZT are virtually non-existent in the public health system on cost and safety grounds. Makgoba said new MRC modeling supported data compiled by the United Nations web , the United States and the South African Actuarial Society that the disease could claim between five million and seven million South Africans in the next ten years.

"They have all independently come up with an estimated figure of between five to seven million people if the epidemic is unchecked which compares with the Holocaust figure of six million," Makgoba said.

"It will be on a Holocaust scale if it remains unchecked. If we don't do anything that is the prediction," he said.

One In Ten Hiv-Positive

The government's own localized ante-natal studies suggest that 4.2 million South Africans -- one in ten of the general population -- are HIV-positive, putting it at the epicenter of the epidemic in the world's most badly hit continent.

South African insurance industry figures put the HIV infection rate at over 2,000 a day and estimate that life expectancy in South Africa will fall to 41 years by 2010 from the current 63 years.

Economists ING Barings expect AIDS to dampen South African economic growth, exacerbate an already severe skills shortage, increase inflation and squeeze savings and investment.

The MRC has just completed a mortality study which concludes that more than half the deaths of people aged between 15 and 49 are already as a result of HIV-AIDS.

Rising mortality rates are most marked in women aged 25-29 where rates are now more than triple what they were a decade ago, according to the MRC. AIDS already accounts for almost a quarter of all deaths.

"If you went into the major hospitals in South Africa...50 percent of patients are HIV-related patients. It is not surprising that the mortality rates are beginning to mirror the admissions," he said.

"We are beginning to reap the effects of that massive increase in HIV prevalence over the last decade...The impact on mortality is only now being reflected," Makgoba said.

The government needed to accept the decisive role that antiretroviral drugs could play in combating the disease, Makgoba said.

"Government must be decisive. We all must send one message, that is very important...We have to accept there are effective and affordable antiretrovirals in the market and some countries like Uganda have used them," Makgoba said.
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