LOS ANGELES TIMES: Tuesday, July 11, 2000 Home Edition Section: Part A Page: A-1

AIDS to Cut Africa Life Expectancy to Under 30

Experts at international conference say some nations will soon have negative population growth as a result of the epidemic.

By: THOMAS H. MAUGH II TIMES MEDICAL WRITER

Life expectancies in some African countries will soon drop below age 30 because of the staggering number of AIDS deaths, experts said Monday. And for perhaps the first time in their history, some nations in southern Africa will experience negative population growth as a result of AIDS, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

The epidemic in Africa is the continent's "worst social catastrophe since slavery," said Dr. Kevin DeCock of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Nearly three-quarters of the 34 million people living with AIDS reside in sub-Saharan Africa, and deaths are increasing at a rate that scientists would have found incomprehensible only a few years ago. Since the beginning of the AIDS epidemic, 11.5 million people have died of the disease in sub-Saharan Africa. About 5,500 now die of AIDS every day, but researchers predict that about 13,000 will die daily by 2010. AIDS now accounts for 21% of all deaths in the region, with malaria a distant second at 9.1%. As the death rate rises, the average life expectancy will fall sharply, said epidemiologist Karen Stanecki of the census bureau. "It's hard to comprehend the amount of mortality we will see in those countries," she said at a Monday news conference. Stanecki predicted that within three years, the populations of Botswana, South Africa and Zimbabwe will begin to drop by 0.1% to 0.3% per year because of AIDS deaths. In the absence of the epidemic, those populations would have risen about 1% to 3% per year. Population growth will be essentially zero in several other countries, she said, including Malawi, Namibia, Swaziland and Zambia. She projected that by 2010, life expectancy will be 29 in Botswana, 30 in Swaziland and 33 in Namibia and Zimbabwe. A recent report by the World Health Organization estimated that 35.8% of the population of Botswana is HIV-positive. Without AIDS, life expectancy would be near 70. "This is a level of life expectancy that has not been seen since the start of the 20th century," Stanecki said.