MRC: Aids still to harm economy

Parliament - The HIV/Aids pandemic has yet to make its

full impact on the South African economy and
productivity, according to the Medical Research Council's Dr Debbie Bradshaw.
Briefing the National Assembly's arts, culture, science and technology committee on
Tuesday, she said the number of people infected with HIV was projected to increase
from the current six million to around seven to eight million by 2006.
Although new infections were then expected to decrease, they would not disappear
completely.
However, the number of people developing full-blown Aids was now beginning to
increase, and Aids deaths should peak around 2010.
Bradshaw said the majority of Aids deaths would be in the young, economically
productive age groups, which would impact on the whole economy, and affect
population age patterns.
Apart from the costs, such as to the country's health services, business and industry
would have to contend with, among other things, increased absenteeism and the loss
of skilled workers.
The education sector would also suffer, with teachers succumbing to the disease, and
children leaving school to work or look after ill family members.

Jobseekers pessimistic - survey

Cape Town - Only 7% of South African adults in
metropolitan areas felt that jobs were easy to find, Research Surveys said on
Thursday.
According to Research Survey's Market Sentiment Index (MSI), which provides
decision-makers in all parts of the economy with some idea of people's sentiment
towards the economy and their future wellbeing, white men were the most likely to
feel that jobs were easy to find (11%).
Coloured people, both men and women, at 4%, were the least optimistic.
The survey was conducted on a sample of 2 000 adults, representing men and
women in South Africa's main metropolitan areas and was representative of all race
groups in those areas, Research Surveys said.
Research Surveys said the MSI was ideally suited to South African conditions.
It examined people's current and future perceptions of the economy in terms of job
availability, business conditions, general economic conditions, prices and inflation,
likely income, and the effects of Aids and crime on the economy.

On Aids, 84% of metropolitan adults felt it had already had a great impact in South
Africa.
About 55% said that Aids had not really affected them yet, but this figure was much
lower for black people at 46%.
The hardest-hit overall was the 25-34 year-old age group with only 48% unaffected.
This obviously indicated dire consequences for the future workforce in South Africa,
Research Surveys said.
Expectations about inflation were pessimistic, with 89% of metropolitan adults
feeling that prices were rising faster than their incomes at present.
58% said they expected inflation to increase over the next six months.
The most pessimistic about the future trend of inflation were white and coloured
people, and, partially correlated with this, the higher income groups, although these
people admitted they were coping better with rising prices than other groups at the
moment.
70% of people said crime had affected them directly. This figure rose to 80% in the
coloured community.
The worst-hit areas overall were Gauteng and Cape Town, with respondents in
Durban and the Eastern Cape giving this response about 55% of the time.

24/07/2002 12:54 - (SA)

HIV/Aids hampers
Africa's progress
Port Elizabeth - The devastating impact of HIV/Aids is rolling back decades of
development progress in Africa and is affecting every element of society, Volkswagen
SA's managing director Hans-Christian Maergner said on Tuesday.
In a speech prepared for delivery at the launch of the company's HIV/Aids
programme at its Uitenhage plant, Maergner said the programme, which would
include voluntary HIV testing of employees, starting on Monday next week, was
drawn up in conjunction with GTZ, the technical co-operation agency of Germany's
Ministry of Co-operation and Development.
Spokesperson Mark Derry said that over the next two years this partnership would
develop an effective HIV/Aids programme to help prevent the spread of the
pandemic, as well as to manage people living with the disease.
Maergner said Africa was facing a huge economic and human tragedy.

"In fact, the United Nations has called Aids the most ruthless and cruel enemy of
men and women in Africa today. The devastating impact of HIV/Aids is rolling back
decades of development progress in Africa and is impacting on every element of our
society - from teachers to farmers to workers to managers - all of us are under
attack from Aids," said Maergner.
He said health and human resources experts agreed that not a single company would
escape the effects of the disease. It followed that the motor industry in South Africa
was also going to suffer.
"As more and more people become sick, there will be pressure on families, the
workplace, the community and our country's economy."
He said the message was that all companies needed to approach the pandemic with
care and compassion for those living with the disease and with a determination to
prevent new infections and overcome its potentially devastating effects.
Precautions
He said Volkswagen SA would help employees to minimise the risk of HIV infection
and transmission through information, education and communication.
"All employees need to understand they have a responsibility to minimise the risk of
HIV infection - or transmission of HIV - by taking appropriate precautions".
Managers and supervisors had a responsibility to ensure all employees who were
HIV-positive were not discriminated against, and that all employees were treated
fairly and with dignity, Maergner said.
"I want to encourage employees to approach the company health service to undergo
HIV testing and pre- and post-test counselling. The results of this testing will be
confidential and will be the first step towards managing their future."
Maergner said the programme would begin with a survey to ascertain the HIV/Aids
prevalence at the plant.
He said this would be confidential and anonymous and would form the basis of the
company's planning for a more secure future for all employees and to provide better
care and assistance for those living with HIV/Aids.
Volkswagen non-executive director Saki Macozoma said the pandemic was affecting
not only the lives of individuals but also the lives of communities.
He said an estimated 5 000 people were dying each week in South Africa from the
disease.
"Business has the resources and it makes sense to fight the HIV/Aids scourge as it
needs to be able to sell it products. But at the same time, we need the communities
to get involved to fight the stigma associated with this problem," Macozoma said.

National Union of Metalworkers of SA president Mthuthuzeli Tom said the HIV/Aids

pandemic had made South Africa a "nation of mourners", with funerals every
weekend. He urged employees to take part in the prevalence testing.
12/07/2002 13:46 - (SA)

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Aids crisis: The state of play

Barcelona, Spain - Following is a summary of the state of
the world Aids crisis, drawn from speeches and workshops at the 14th International
Aids Conference here:
State of the pandemic: Twenty million dead over past 21 years, 40 million infected
with HIV today, according to UN agency UNAids. Another 68 million could die by
2020.
Regions at risk: Sub-Saharan Africa is worst-hit but the fastest growth rate now in
the former Soviet Union. Asia's big-population countries - China, India and Indonesia
- are now heading down same path.
Orphan crisis: Number of children who will lose one or both parents from Aids could
nearly double to 25 million by 2010, a social and economic timebomb.
Drugs: Still no sign of a cure. Worrying signs of resistance to antiretroviral drugs
introduced in the 1990s. However a brand-new generation of treatments, called
fusion inhibitors, shows great promise for people with chronic HIV infection.
Vaccine: It will be several years before any vaccine becomes available. Results
expected early 2003 from the trial of AidsVax, the only vaccine currently undergoing
large tests on human volunteers.
If AidsVax proves effective, small-scale production could start at the end of 2004,
and large-scale production 18-24 months later. Thailand will start a five-year test of
a second candidate vaccine later this year.
The good news: revolutionary vaccine designs are emerging from the labs, exploiting
the latest knowledge of the genome.
Funding: Response is slowly building to the UN's appeal for an additional $10 billion
a year by 2005 to combat the pandemic in poorer countries. Activists say the money
is still not enough and will be too late for millions with HIV.
Pledges to the new Global Fund to Fight Aids, Tuberculosis and Malaria now total
$2.1 billion.
Access to drugs: Remains a hot issue. Drugs companies are increasingly making
cutprice deals with developing countries, negotiating as a bloc, to avoid losing out to
cheap copies of their products manufactured by Brazil, India and Thailand.

Focus is fast shifting to the need to have medical infrastructure to distribute these
drugs properly. - Sapa-AFP
07/07/2002 12:40 - (SA)

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Aids 'will wipe out' Botswana

Ben Hirschler
Barcelona - Botswana, whose relative riches have failed
to stop it becoming the country most blighted by
HIV/Aids, said on Sunday it was facing extinction by the
disease.
A staggering 39% of adults are infected with HIV in the diamond-rich southern
African country, with rates over 50% in the northeast and among urban expectant
mothers, and the pandemic is still outstripping all efforts to control it.
"We are all engaged in a fight to the death," Health Minister Joy Phumaphi told a
fringe meeting at the international Aids conference in Barcelona in Spain.
"Our comprehensive strategy is still in its early stages and the rate of infection still
exceeds the pace of the roll-out of our critical programmes and initiatives."
Scientists had believed HIV/Aids might reach some natural limit in sub-Saharan
Africa, where 28.5 million people are now infected, but Botswana's experience has so
far dashed that hope.
Life expectancy for the 1.6 million Botswanans has fallen below 40 years for the first
time since 1950. Studies suggest it could dip below 30 if the spread of the virus is
not reversed.
"We are faced with extinction," said Dr Banu Khan, head of the National Aids Coordinating Agency.
Work force dwindling
To date, the government's focus has been on prevention. But earlier this year
Botswana became the first African country to adopt a phased programme to provide
antiretroviral drugs to its citizens free of cost. It is too early to gauge results.
The campaign against the disease is being supported by US drug giants Merck & Co
Inc and Bristol-Myers Squibb Co, as well as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
Botswana's diamond mines, the biggest in the world in terms of the value of the
output, give the country more financial flexibility than most of its neighbours. Per
capita income of $3 300 is seven times the average for sub-Saharan Africa.

But Aids is decimating the productive workforce and undermining the economic
foundations of the country.
According to Khan, Botswana's economy will be one third smaller by 2021 than it
would have been without Aids while government expenditure will have to increase by
20%.
05/07/2002 11:31 - (SA)

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Taking stock of the Aids crisis

Paris - The world's top Aids specialists muster in
Barcelona from Sunday for a fresh appraisal of the
monster whose hydra heads are ravaging southern Africa and eastern Europe and
are now ripping into Asia.
The eagerly-awaited conference, which is held only once every two years, will yield
the most accurate update available of the global pandemic and the latest weapons in
the arsenal for tackling it.
It has been more than two decades since the human immunodeficiency virus was
pinpointed as the source of a mysterious destruction of the immune system, leaving
the body exposed to opportunistic illness.
Since then, more than 20 million people have died of full-blown Aids (acquired
immune deficiency syndrome) and another 40 million have HIV, most of them in
developing countries where the chances of survival are grim.
In the 45 worst-hit countries, 68 million people may die prematurely in the first two
decades of this century if prevention and treatment are not greatly stepped up.
"It's frightening. It is by far the biggest epidemic that humanity has known in
absolute terms," said Peter Piot, executive director of UNAids.
Sub-Saharan Africa, especially in the south of that continent, is bearing the brunt of
the pandemic, with an estimated 28.5 million infections.
On present trends, within three years most Africans will not live to see their 48th
birthday, said African Development Bank demographer Prosper Poutkouta. In
Botswana, Malawi, Mozambique and Swaziland, the average life expectancy at birth
is already below 40 years, half of the figure in rich countries.
"The devastating impact of HIV/Aids is rolling back decades of development progress
in Africa," Piot said.
"Every element of African society - from teachers to soldiers to farmers - is under
attack by Aids," he added.

The question in some minds as to whether these countries can survive as meaningful
entities if a quarter of the workforce, many of them trained people vital to the
economy, government and military, are lost to Aids.
Other regions, too, seem poised to follow the African path, driven by a lethal
combination of public ignorance, government ignorance, poor resources,
promiscuous and unprotected sex, contamined blood transfusion stocks and
intravenous drug use.
"Right now, the fastest-growing region in the world for HIV is Eastern Europe,
especially the Ukraine," says Seth Berkley, president of the International Aids Vaccine
Initiative (IAVI).
China, according to a report drafted last month by UNAids, faces an HIV/Aids
disaster of "unimaginable proportion". Within a few years, it may have more
infections than any other country.
"Millions of Chinese have never heard the word Aids. Many more still think that it is
more likely to contract HIV from mosquito bites or handshaking than through sharing
needles or unsafe sex."
The arms against the pandemic still fall woefully short of what is needed, but the
news is not all bad:
Vaccines
Trials are still underway of the so-called gp120 antibody vaccine, the only vaccine
that has so far made it to the third and final phase of the testing process.
The results from this ongoing test are a closely guarded secret, but many in the Aids
scientific community have generally poor expectations for it.
On the other hand, there has been a flurry of new vaccine ideas, such as using
disabled viruses to deliver genetic snippets to prime the immune system. But it will
be years before if these formulas, if successful, enter the public domain.
Treatment
In the absence of a cure for HIV, the famous "cocktail" of anti-retroviral drugs
remains the best hope for suppressing the virus.
There has been good news on this front.
Firstly, the cost of these drugs has fallen by nearly 90 percent in many poorer
countries, thanks to concessions by big pharmaceutical companies in the face of
vociferous campaigning. A huge challenge remains: Ensuring that infected people
have access to the treatment.
Secondly, some powerful additions to the 15 antiretroviral arsenal are en route.
One class tackles two proteins that HIV uses to reproduce itself after it invades the T4 lymphocyte cells of the immune system, while the other seeks to block the virus

from entering the cell. Both types have been tested on small groups of infected
volunteers.
The International Aids Conference runs in Barcelona, northeastern Spain, from July 7
to 12. - Sapa/AFP
12/06/2002 11:01 - (SA)

Aids stats questioned

Willemien Brmmer

Cape Town - Government's

latest Aids statistics were
Related Articles
HIV infection rate down

described as "confusing"
and "unreliable" in several
circles on Tuesday.
According to researchers it
is "very nave of
government to say the
Aids pandemic is levelling
out".
Deductions, like that the
prevalence of HIV/Aids has
decreased among young
pregnant women because
teenagers allegedly listen
to government's Aids
message, are "totally
unscientific", researchers
say.
In the latest study on the
prevalence of HIV/Aids
among pregnant women,
conducted at 421 pre-natal
clinics last year, it was
found that 24.8% of the
women were HIV positive,
compared to 24.5% the
year before. Government
concluded from this that
the rate of infection has

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possibly levelled out, after

this figure had increased
from 0.7% to 22.4%
between 1990 and 1999.
Leigh Johnson from the
Centre for Actuarial
Research at the University
of Cape Town, who was
involved in the
controversial report on
Aids deaths, said he and
his colleagues had several
problems with this point of
view.
Several stages
"There are several stages
in the Aids pandemic. The
number of new infections
peaked in 1998, but the
number of people infected
with the virus will only
reach a high in 2005. The
number of Aids deaths will
peak in 2010 and the
number of Aids orphans in
2015.
"The biggest impact of the
Aids pandemic will
therefore only truly
become apparent over the
next decade."
Johnson also said data
collected at pre-natal
clinics did not always
sketch a realistic picture.
"We have known for quite
some time that HIV has a
negative influence on
women's fertility. As the
epidemic rages ahead and
more women become
infertile, the consequence
is that less HIV positive
women visit the clinics."

Johnson also expressed his

concern regarding the fact
that government had
compared Aids statistics of
1998 with those of last
year. Government alleges,
among other things, that a
decrease of 5.6% can be
seen in Aids figures for
pregnant women younger
than 20.
"The problem with this
assumption is that the test
group of women who were
used for the research, has
changed drastically over
the past few years. In the
past, government included,
for example, considerably
less rural pre-natal clinics
in its sample - something
which could have made the
figures seem higher than
they are in reality."
Johnson said the
prevalence of HIV was
usually considerably lower
in rural areas than in
urban areas.
He said government's
figures on the number of
people in South Africa
living with HIV (about 4.7
million) were also
inaccurate. The figures
only represented people
between the ages of 15
and 49, and not the entire
population.

'No glove, no love'