Shock AIDS warning falls on deaf ears: Zambia rejects horrific UN statistics as 'alarmist'. Studies show an estimated 20 percent of the adult population is HIV-positive.

Shock AIDS warning falls on deaf ears: Zambia rejects horrific UN statistics as 'alarmist'. Studies show an estimated 20 percent of the adult population is HIV-positive.

The Sunday Times, South Africa - August 1, 1999
Olga Manda: Lusaka

FRIGHTENING official and independent studies show that one in every five adult Zambians is HIV-positive, and that within the next six years life expectancy in the country will drop dramatically from the present 57 years to 37.

Adults make up nearly 46 percent of Zambia's population of 10,2 million, but many of the youth, ranging in age from 15 to 35 years, are also HIV-positive.

But figures released by the independent United Nations AIDS agency this week were immediately condemned by the Zambian government as "alarmist", and a ban was placed on all AIDS-related statistics compiled and released by independent organisations in the country, including UNAIDS.

The denial of the figures and the accompanying ban are all the more bizarre given that they amount to the Zambian government repudiating its own findings: the UNAIDS figures confirm virtually every aspect of an official Zambian Health Ministry report released eight weeks ago, which categorically stated that "Zambia has one of the worst HIV/AIDS pandemics in the world, with an estimated 20 percent of the adult population HIV-positive".

The official state report added the ominous warning that life expectancy in the country would drop from 57 years to 37 years by the year 2005.

The reason given for the ban on any information relating to AIDS statistics was that the organisations involved in the fight against the epidemic did not derive their information from surveys which were "nationally representative".

Reacting to the UNAIDS study as he imposed the ban, Central Statistics Office director David Diangamo said the information released by the agency was "incorrect" and "alarming the nation".

He was emphatic on one point: "We will not accept that any [foreign] representative in this country should tell us that 20 percent of the adult population is HIV-positive. You will fail to make a breakdown of this figure, therefore when you make such statements you're alarming the nation."

He insisted that he was "the only official spokesman on these issues" and he spoke on behalf of Zambia's citizens.

Walter North, director of USAID, which works closely with other independent groups, said: "Whether the rate is 20 percent or 30 percent, one death is one too many."

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