Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2000. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
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United Press International - Tuesday, 5 September 2000
Timothy Kalyegira
The Johannesburg Star quoted the statistics from data presented at a medical conference held in the Midrand area outside Johannesburg.
The president of the Hospital Association of South Africa, Dr Annette van der Merwe, on Monday disclosed to the delegates at the conference that student nurses were also falling victim to the epidemic, with more than 50 percent of the first-year students at one of four nursing schools in Gauteng province HIV-positive.
Another delegate, Eileen Brannigan of the Netcare hospital group said the health industry was being depleted of manpower as AIDS spreads among the critically needed workers.
"In our organization we are losing registered nurses. We are sitting with nurses who are dying now and the students are even worse off," Brannigan said.
The southern African region has some of the world's highest AIDS infection rates. Zimbabwe has the world's highest rate, at 25.9 percent of the population, while Botswana's rate is 25.1, Namibia's 19.4, Zambia's 19.1, and South Africa's 12.9.
The Ministry of Health estimated that by the end of 1999, about 4.2 million South Africans were HIV-positive.
South Africa is Africa's largest economy but the government has been criticized both nationally and abroad for glossing over the extent of the AIDS crisis. Earlier this year, president Thabo Mbeki caused an uproar when he questioned the assertion that HIV is the cause of AIDS.
The American Congressman Jim McDermott warned in August during a visit to Botswana that if AIDS in Africa was not brought under control, the United States would become embroiled in the resulting chaos on the continent. McDermott criticized the way some African governments were implementing programs to combat AIDS, saying programs controlled by governments were not working.
Researchers at the International Conference on Aids in Durban, South Africa in July warned that AIDS could reduce the wealth of some African countries by as much as 20 percent.
Nearly 25 million people in Africa are infected with the HIV virus --- 75% of the world's infected people.
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