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Number of Cape orphans of HIV/AIDS 'will double'
Jo-anne Smetherham. 8 April 2003. Cape Times. Republished courtesy of Independent Newspapers (Pty) Ltd.
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Cape Town already has 21 000 HIV/AIDS orphans, and this number will more than double in three years.
These were some of the figures released on Saturday by Nomsa Mlangeni, the city's executive councillor for health, amenities and sport.
Addressing the Cape Metropolitan Health Forum - a body of elected community members who advise city health about the needs in their areas - Mlangeni also said:
- Somebody is infected with HIV every half an hour
- Over 51 000 Cape Town children would have been orphaned by HIV/AIDS by 2006
- By 2009 the life expectancy of black people will have dropped from 55 to 40 years and that of coloured people from 65 to 55
Figures of HIV/AIDS prevalence were not available for white people, she said, and this posed a problem for researchers that could not be allowed to continue.
The statistics Mlangeni mentioned came from a study by University of Cape Town actuarial professor Rob Dorrington, said city head of health, Ivan Toms.
Dorrington is well respected as the chief architect of the Actuarial Society of South Africa's model on HIV/AIDS.
When questioned about whether anti-retroviral therapy would be used to keep parents alive and stem the flood of orphans, Toms said: "There is a very good chance we will be able to add to the pilot sites already existing in the city."
Community empowerment, Toms said, was needed to address HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis - the city's worst health problems.
To this end "multi-sectoral action teams" had been set up within each of the city's health districts. These teams would review applications for funding for programmes ranging from home-based care to HIV/AIDS prevention programmes, he said.
There was a "gross under-reporting" of HIV/AIDS-related deaths, Mlangeni said in her speech.
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