Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 1997. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
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United Press International; Thursday, September 25, 1997 20:00 EST
Heidi Dawley
A study released today in the British Medical Journal highlights the impact that AIDS virus HIV-1 has had on life expectancy and mortality in a rural African population.
The five-year study, conducted by Britain's Medical Research Council, estimates that life expectancy in a rural community in southwest Uganda has fallen from 58.3 years to 42.5 years as a consequence of the AIDS epidemic.
Andrew Nunn, senior statistician and co-author of the report, tells UPI, "Life expectancy had been improving in Africa before HIV. Now HIV has really knocked it back."
He says, "This area in Uganda won't be unique in Africa. This has implications for what is happening in other parts of Sub-Saharan Africa."
In study area in Uganda, 8 percent of the adult population is infected with HIV-1. The virus has nearly doubled the death rate in adults, with some 41 percent of adult deaths each year attributed to the disease. For 25- to 44-year-olds, that number rises to 70 percent.
Since the beginning of the AIDS pandemic, an estimated 16 million people have caught the virus in Africa, mostly in sub-Saharan countries. But data on the impact on death rates and life expectancy has been scarce.
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