HIV Epidemic Restructuring Africa's Population: A missing generation - a population of orphans - a shortage of women

Abstract

The HIV epidemic raging across Africa is a tragedy of epic proportions, one that is altering the region's demographic future. lt is reducing life expectancy, raising mortality, lowering fertility, creating an excess of men over women, and leaving millions of orphans in its wake. This year began with 24 million Africans infected with the virus. ln the absence of a medical miracle, nearly all will die before 2010. Each day, 6,000 Africans die from AIDS. Each day, an additional 11,000 are infected.The epidemic has proceeded much faster in some countries than in others. In Botswana. 36 percent of the adult population is HIV-positive. In Zimbabwe and Swaziland, the infection rate is 25 percent. Lesotho is at 24 percent. In Namibia, South Africa, and Zambia, the figure is 20 percent. In none of these countries has the spread of the virus been checked. Research in Nine and a Half Minutes To the Editor: One of the tasks that loom over the heads of anyone involved in post-graduate education is the "dreaded" research project. The terms are confusing, the statistics are frightening and the reading is overwhelming. By the time you have decided what to research, written a protocol, constructed a questionnaire, drawn up a budget, got the approval of the ethics committee, conducted the survey, analyzed the data and written it all up, your wife is threatening to divorce you, your kids are questioning you sanity and the dog no longer even wags his tail when you come home. ls it any wonder that many give up before even beginning?