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Grim HIV/AIDS forecast for KwaZulu-Natal
Patrick Leeman & Lynne Altenroxel. 16 October 2003. The Mercury. Republished courtesy of Independent Newspapers (Pty) Ltd.
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A leading South African statistician says he cannot see how KwaZulu-Natal can ever recover from the current HIV/AIDS epidemic.
South Africa has the highest incidence of HIV/AIDS in the world, and KwaZulu-Natal is the province with the largest number of those affected.
"We have reached a medical emergency in this country," Robert Shell, Associate Professor in the Department of Statistics at the University of the Western Cape, told delegates to the annual conference of the Demographic Association at Potchefstroom, organised in conjunction with the pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline.
Shell said that the estimates provided by demographers in the 1990s on the level of damage which would be experienced through the ravages of HIV/AIDS were "too low".
"We are looking at the destruction of our population at unparalleled levels," he said. "We are at a very profound moment in our history."
The conference was told that HIV/AIDS was reducing South Africans' chances of getting jobs. The grim reality was that companies were reducing the size of their labour forces in an attempt to avert the financial impact of sick and dying staff.
Companies were adapting to the HIV/AIDS epidemic by replacing employees with machines to avoid the costs of absenteeism and paying out pensions to the families of employees who died young.
"A machine works 24 hours a day and it doesn't get sick," explained economist Ian Marsberg. "When it breaks down you replace it - no hassles."
The conference, which ends tomorrow, has seen discussion on a number of population statistics, including fertility, the government's latest population census and HIV.
Discussions on the financial impact of the epidemic shed some light on the reasons why unemployment is increasing despite South Africa's economic growth. Job losses are widespread.
One study showed how the breadwinners of almost one third of households in Cape Town's townships had lost a job in the previous year.
Prof Carel van Aardt, of Unisa's Bureau for Market Research, said a survey revealed that the majority of companies did not see HIV/AIDS as a big threat - they simply adjusted their strategies to cope with its impact. This included a shift towards contract labour and spending more on technology.
Van Aardt revealed astounding figures extrapolated from these household studies to show how HIV/AIDS would reduce spending on basic items such as food, clothing and household appliances.
Based on current prices, consumers would spend R6.2 billion less on grain products such as maize meal and R24.7 billion less on beverages and tobacco in 2012. In addition there had already been a drop in the consumption of soft drinks, also a favourite commodity of the poor. |
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