AIDS Cuts Life Expectancy in Southern Africa

HARARE (October 9, 1997 00:05 a.m. EDT http://www.nando.net) - Life expectancy in eastern and southern African countries with severe AIDS epidemics will decline by 2010 to half what was projected before the virus spread, experts predict.

The result, according to recent estimates by the U.S. Bureau of the Census, is that average life expectancy in Malawi will drop to 29.5 years, the lowest in the world, instead of 57 otherwise.

In 1996 life expectancy in Malawi stood at 36. Without the ravages caused by the Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome it would have been around 50.

In Zambia, life expectancy is estimated to fall to 30 years by 2010 while in Botswana it will go down to 33 years, both 50 percent of that originally expected.

In the absence of AIDS, life expectancy in Zambia would have been 57.5 years in 1996 but has been reduced to about 36, while Botswana was projected to be at 60 years but was down to 46 years.

The average Zimbabwean born in 2010 could have expected to reach 70, but now he will be lucky to reach 33. Life expectancy last year was put at 42, but without AIDS it would have been 64.

East Africa is better off, because although AIDS is still rife there the epidemic is not as severe.

Kenya's life expectancy for 1996 had been estimated at 65 but fell as a result of AIDS to 56, while Uganda's dropped from 53 to 40. In 2010 it will be 44 instead of 68, and 35 instead of 54 respectively.

The national percentage of adults infected with the HIV virus that causes AIDS is about 18 percent in Zambia and Zimbabwe and about 14 percent in Uganda.

The unprecedented decline in life expectancy will have an important demographic impact, said Geoff Foster, a Zimbabwean doctor and head of the Mutare Family AIDS Caring Trust.

"Many years of life will be lost due to the AIDS epidemic," he said.

Foster, who is a pediatrician, said lowered life expectancy due to AIDS necessarily implies dramatic increases in the numbers of orphaned children.

UNAIDS, a U.N. agency dealing with the HIV/AIDS epidemic, estimated that in 1996 the world had nine million motherless children because of AIDS, and at least three million children carrying the virus.

Experts say at least 30 million children are likely to be orphaned in the next few years since they currently live with HIV-positive parents.

The Geneva-based UNAIDS projections for Zimbabwe and Zambia indicate that child mortality rate may increase nearly threefold by the year 2010 due to AIDS.

Set up in January 1996, UNAIDS has 22 U.N. member states, both donors and recipients, sitting on its program coordinating board. It advocates global action on preventing transmission and alleviating the impact of the epidemic.

Although populations will generally continue to grow in most African countries due to high fertility rates, AIDS will selectively affect the economically active groups.

The impact on labor will not be uniform, depending on whether skilled or unskilled workers are affected.

The Harare-based Southern Africa AIDS Information Dissemination Service (SAFAIDS), in its latest review of social and economic effects of HIV/AIDS in southern Africa, says studies show that the estimated labor force in Tanzania will shrink by 20 percent by the year 2010.

SAFAIDS says preliminary data based on 51 countries indicate that HIV/AIDS has so far had only a small and statistically insignificant impact on macro-economic indicators like the GDP (Gross Domestic Product), but it will probably reduce the rate of economic growth by as much as 25 percent over a period of 20 years.

Zambia, for example, is projected to experience a nine percent fall in GDP below what would have been expected by the year 2000, if there was no AIDS.

"The AIDS pandemic is like a carcinoma, no section of the economy will remain untouched," Marvellous Mhloyi, a respected Zimbabwean demographer, said of the impact of AIDS on the sub-continent.

With 14 million people living with HIV/AIDS, sub-Saharan African accounts for about 63 percent of the world's total cases.

People in the region have learnt to live with AIDS and tolerate death, said Mhloyi.

"It becomes a silent conspiracy of complacency. Life gets trivialized," she said at a recent regional economic summit.

By SUSAN NJANJI, Agence France-Presse