7HIV/AIDS in South Africa

The emergence of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, and its substantial humanand economic repercussions, is one of the most significant develop-ments of South Africa’s post-apartheid period. Two thousand South Africans contract the disease each day, and recent official estimates of the National Department of Health placed the number of HIV-positive people at the end of 2002 at 5.4 million, or over 12 percent of the total population. Nearly one-fourth of adults aged 15–49 are estimated to be infected.1 Some 400,000 to 500,000 South Africans have AIDS, the most severe stage of HIV infection. The disease claims 800–1,300 lives each day, accounting for 30 percent of all deaths nationally and 40 percent of deaths of adults aged 15–49. The accumulated number of AIDS deaths up to 2004 has been esti-mated by Statistics South Africa at nearly 1.5 million. Average life expectancy has fallen sharply, from 64 years in 1994 to 49 years in 2001. The growing number of AIDS orphans, estimated by the United Nations at nearly 700,000 in 2001, is placing strains on extended families, communi-ties, and public services, and demographic models suggest that the numbe