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HIV/AIDS is spreading through elite circles
Andrew Quinn. 31 January 2007. Cape Times. Republished courtesy of Independent Newspapers (Pty) Ltd.
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South Africa's HIV/AIDS epidemic, often regarded as a disease of the poor, is in fact spreading quickly among the country's richest and best educated people, researchers said on Tuesday.
The study by the Markinor polling firm and the University of South Africa (UNISA) showed a rapid increase in HIV infections in professional people and those with fulltime employment - both key to South Africa's hopes of spurring economic development.
"The high-risk group is growing, it is getting older and it is getting richer," said Carel van Aardt, director of UNISA's Bureau of Market Research. "This could represent a whole new wave of the epidemic."
The study challenges widespread assumptions about South Africa's HIV/AIDS crisis, which is often described as a disease of the rural poor who lack access to information, treatment and basic health services.
South Africa now has 5.5-million HIV-positive people out of a population of about 45-million, giving it an estimated overall prevalence rate of about 11 percent and one of the worst HIV/AIDS caseloads in the world.
The new study examined 3 500 South Africans between 2002 and 2005, in a poll engineered to reflect the country's racial and economic demographics.
Overall, the study identified young people below the age of 30 as being at greatest risk, as most previous research has done. But it also found infections rising at alarming rates in the rich and better educated - groups not previously singled out as being at risk.
"We are on the eve of a very scary reality unless we start making some changes," said Tracy Hammond, Markinor's project manager for the study.
Researchers said there were many possible factors behind the spread of HIV/AIDS among upper levels of society, among them confused government messages about HIV/AIDS, greater disposable income and leisure, and general apathy about safe sex practices.
But whatever the reason, HIV/AIDS is certainly climbing the social ladder for both black and white South Africans.
Among South Africa's professionals, for instance, the study found a 34-percent jump in estimated HIV prevalence, rising to 8.3 percent in 2004 from 6.2 percent in 2002.
People with fulltime jobs - who in South Africa account for only about half the working population - saw estimated HIV-prevalence rise to 19.2 percent in 2005 from 14.4 percent in 2002. Unemployed people, while seeing a bigger percentage jump in HIV prevalence, remained lower in terms of actual prevalence rates with just 18.4 percent estimated infected in 2005 compared with 11 percent in 2002.
The study said HIV infection was growing most quickly in those aged between 30-34, threatening people just as their careers take off.
Overall, the richest third of South Africa's population still has a lower estimated HIV-prevalence than the poorest third, at 8.5 percent compared to 23.4 percent. But new infections were increasing most rapidly in this demographic, rising by 39 percent between 2002-2005 against only a 14-percent increase for their poorest compatriots.
"This time it is not the employees, it is the employers. It is not the people without bank accounts, it is the people who make investments," Hammond said. "If we thought the HIV/AIDS epidemic was having bad economic effects already, this could take us to the crisis point."
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