AIDS: A THREAT TO SOUTHERN AFRICA'S ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT

by Winnet Mutimbe

As southern Africa moves into the new millennium, it is faced with the challenge of bringing the AIDS pandemic under control in order to boost its economic development.

Despite efforts by governments, community-based organisations and other parties to curb the spread of the disease, southern Africa remains the hardest hit. In Botswana, Namibia, Swaziland and Zimbabwe, current estimates show that between 20 percent and 26 percent of people aged between 15 and 49 are living with HIV or AIDS.

Time magazine says, South Africa's Department of Health estimates that at least 20 percent of the workforce will be infected by the virus by next year. Over the next three years, the annual death toll will be 250,000 leaving behind almost 600,000 orphans. The disease is projected to cut average life expectancy by 20 years, and to shrink economic growth by two percent.

The 1998 UNDP Human Development Report warned, "the epidemic will have significant sectoral and macro impacts, unless effective policies and programmes are put in place to plan for and address effects on the labour supply and productivity."

According to the South African Health Minister, Nkosazana Zuma, the country has the fastest growing number of HIV patients with close to 50,000 people acquiring the virus every month.

Efforts to curb the pandemic in South Africa are hampered by the social stigma that remains attached to AIDS patients. In December 1998, an HIV positive woman, Gugu Dlamini, was beaten to death outside a shebeen in KwaManchinza, in KwaZulu. Four teenagers allegedly killed her because she had gone public about her health status. Incidents such as this one are likely to be the cause of under reporting of the pandemic in that country.

In Zimbabwe, one of the worst affected countries, it is estimated that 1,400 people die of the disease every week. "The effect of HIV on the country mirrors its effect on individuals. In the absence of treatment, an HIV patient has a relatively normal life for six or seven years, before succumbing to life-threatening AIDS symptoms," a recent report said.

"The financial sector malfunctions as it attempts to protect itself from the potentially crippling impact of HIV-related payouts for the sick and disabled, by preventing individuals from buying a significant amount of life insurance," said the report.

The epidemic is mainly affecting the economically active age group. Countries affected will lose large amounts of money in training the unskilled workers in an effort to find suitable replacements for the skilled men and women who are dying.

In Zimbabwe, training costs in 1993 were estimated at US$2,500 per worker, or less than six months of the average worker's income. The figure will certainly rise within the next five years as more and more people die.

The 1998 SADC Regional Human Development Report reveals that life expectancy in Zambia dropped from 54 years in 1990 to 43 years in 1995 and is likely to fall to 38 years by the turn of the century.

"This has had a negative impact on the country's Human Development Index thereby reducing the number of economically active people in the country," says the report.

AIDS is spreading rapidly in the region so much that the Namibian Human Development Report in conjunction with UNAIDS recently, warned that "in cumulative terms the impact of the virus could be the equivalent of having a severe drought every three years." (SARDC)