Newly released AIDS figures for the year 2000 paint a good news, bad news picture of the state of the epidemic in South Africa. The good news is that the rate of HIV infection is beginning to slow down. Over the past three years, for example, there has been no increase in the rate of new infections among teenagers. The bad news is that even with the decline, there were 500,000 new AIDS cases last year in South Africa — a 12 percent increase over 1999.
This is good compared to a few years ago when the AIDS infection rate was doubling, but the bottom line is still that one in nine South Africans is infected with the disease and as many as 5 million people will die from the disease over the next 20 years barring any sort of improved medical intervention (i.e. without cheap anti-AIDS drugs).
Sources:
South Africa HIV-AIDS cases rise. The BBC, March 20, 2001.
South African HIV infections rise. Greg Barrow, The BBC, March 21, 2001.