Kaiser Daily HIV/AIDS Report -Mon, 17 Sep 2001
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*South African Medical Research Council Report Says AIDS is Nation's
Leading Cause of Death
* Swaziland Looks to Revive 'Chastity Rite' to Fight AIDS
Global Challenges
South African Medical Research Council Report Says AIDS is Nation's
Leading Cause of Death
AIDS is the leading cause of death among South Africans and could
claim as many as six million lives in the country by 2010 if preven-
tive measures are not taken, according to an unreleased report by the
South African Medical Research Council, Johannesburg's Sunday Times
reports. Among South Africans between the ages of 15 and 49, 40% of
deaths last year were AIDS-related, the report, titled "The Impact of
HIV/AIDS on Adult Mortality in South Africa", states. The report's
findings stand in contrast to President Thabo Mbeki's insistence that
other causes such as violence and poverty are the nation's leading
killers (Taitz, Sunday Times, 9/16). Last Monday, Business Day re-
ported that Mbeki had ordered the government to reevaluate its social
policy spending in light of 1995 data from the World Health Organiza-
tion that said "external causes" such as accidents, homicide and sui-
cide, not HIV/AIDS, constitute the leading causes of death in the na-
tion. The WHO figures, which Mbeki reportedly found on the Internet,
showed that external causes were responsible for 19.8% of deaths,
while HIV/AIDS accounted for 2.2% of deaths (Business Day, 9/10). In
an Aug. 6 letter to Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, Mbeki
asked that she share the statistics with the cabinet's "social clus-
ter" and consider what policies the government has in place to reduce
deaths, whether resources are properly allocated in light of the sta-
tistics and whether the country's medical institutions are properly
prepared to deal with the types of deaths mentioned in the report
(Kaiser Daily HIV/AIDS Report, 9/11).
'Confusion' Among Officials
The MRC report, which is based on data from the South African Health
Department's antenatal survey and the Actuarial Society of South Af-
rica's AIDS model, found "rapid changes" since 1997 in the country's
mortality figures among young adults. The report predicts that if
nothing is done to halt the spread of HIV, by 2010 there will be a
"three-fold" increase in deaths among children between the ages of
one and five; AIDS-related deaths will account for twice as many
deaths as all other causes combined; and population growth will be
halted. According to the Sunday Times, there appears to be "confu-
sion" among government officials about the soon-to-be-released re-
port. On Thursday, Tshabalala-Msimang told a Parliament press brief-
ing that the MRC researchers had "worked alone outside the collective
which had been established," a fact that "worrie[d]" the government.
However, a Health Department statement released Monday with Tsha-
balala-Msimang's name on it said that the report was compiled in part
because of a recommendation by the Presidential AIDS Advisory Panel
to assemble current AIDS mortality data. Mbeki's spokesperson, Bheki
Khumalo, would not comment on the "issues of statistics" or why Mbeki
"had not spoken to local researchers" regarding the mortality esti-
mates. In a preface to the report, obtained by the Times, MRC Presi-
dent Dr. Malegapuru William Makgoba said that denial was "predictably
the first African public response to the [AIDS] epidemic," because
the disease is associated with homosexuality, a practice deemed "un-
African" by many (Sunday Times, 9/16).
Swaziland Looks to Revive 'Chastity Rite' to Fight AIDS
King Mswati III of Swaziland, where 50,000 people have died of AIDS-
related causes, announced that the government will resurrect a "chas-
tity rite," whereby young women would wear different colored tassels
depending upon their ages, to "preserve virginity among girls and
combat AIDS," Agence France-Presse/New York Times reports. "A man who
dares touch a lady wearing a woollen tassel will find himself having
the tassels thrown at him and the girls will then converge at the
man's home, where they will demand an animal which they will feast
on," the king added (Agence France-Presse/New York Times, 9/15).
The Kaiser Daily HIV/AIDS Report is published for kaisernetwork.org,
a free service of The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, by National
Journal Group Inc. , 2001 by National Journal Group Inc. and Kaiser
Family Foundation. All rights reserved.
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