NAIDS, the United Nations body responsible for the coordination of the UNs efforts to fight the HIV/AIDS pandemic, estimates that 5.3 million South Africans of all ages were infected with HIV at the end of 2003.
The IDASA analyses of deaths between 1999 and 2003 among voters registered on the voters’ roll strengthen the argument that critical segments of the South African electorate are dying from AIDS. Overall, between 1999 and 2003 nearly 1.5 million South African registered voters died of various causes.
The report argues that the unusual mortality profiles in the electorate to a large extent can be explained by AIDS. This argument is based on the strong correspondence found between the profiles that the analysis generated and those that have been described by the expert demographers in the field of HIV/AIDS, as well as on the report’s statistical analyses (Ibid.: 15).
With a start to the epidemic in the early 1990s, South Africa has only more recently entered the phase when devastating effects will become increasingly clear and painful in terms of sharp increase in AIDS-related morbidity and mortality. That is unless a quick and extensive treatment campaign can effectively halt this tragic development (ibid.: 27).
Next: Contributors to this Focus On
Other Focus On.. series
