POPULATION: AIDS is ‘Devastating’ Africa’s Population

By Farhan Haq Reprint | | Print |

UNITED NATIONS, Oct 28 1998 (IPS) - The AIDS epidemic is dramatically reducing life expectancy throughout sub-Saharan Africa and will also cut the populations of many African countries within the next 10 to 15 years, says a new U.N. statistical survey.

The biannual revision of world population estimates, released Wednesday by the U.N. Department of Economic and Social Affairs’ Population Division, projects that in the nine worst-hit African countries, life expectancy rates between 2010 and 2015 are expected to average only 47 years.

Without the AIDS epidemic, life expectancies in those countries would have been projected at 64 years – “17 years of life expectancy lost to AIDS.” Already life expectancy in Africa – currently 47 years – is seven years less than it would be if there were no AIDS epidemic, the report said.

The growing number of AIDS-related deaths will also have a much more dramatic effect in decreasing fertility, and reducing population growth, throughout Africa than was initially believed, said Joseph Chamie, director of the the population division.

The United Nations is revising population estimates for many of the worst-hit countries sharply downward in light of the effect of the epidemic.

By 2015, South Africa is now projected to boast a population of 43.3 million people – or about nine million fewer people than had been estimated if there were no AIDS epidemic. Zimbabwe’s population for 2015 is now projected to be only 13.6 million people, or 3.2 million people fewer than had been estimated before accounting for AIDS.

Despite such declines, the U.N. survey predicts that overall growth rates in Africa, and even in the countries most affected by AIDS, will continue to rise slightly. “Even in the worst cases, the toll of AIDS is not expected to lead to declines of populations, because fertility in these countries is high,” the report says.

The population of Botswana – where the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) now infects out of every four adults – is still expected to double between the years 1995 and 2050, although its population growth will be about 23 percent less than otherwise expected.

Chamie said that South Africa’s estimated growth rate with AIDS would be a low, but still positive, 0.3 percent; without the epidemic, it would have been 1.6 percent, he said.

The potential loss of so many millions of Africans, Chamie added, underscored “the lack of prevention” in Africa. “AIDS is preventable if you simply take the steps,” he argued. “It will continue to be transmitted until sexual patterns change, people take preventive measures” and governments educate the population about HIV transmission and AIDS.

The other results of the division’s 1998 revision of its population estimates largely show good news about the global effort to reduce fertility.

World population growth has fallen from its peak of 2 percent in the 1960s – or an increase of some 86 million people every year – to 1.3 percent, or a net increase of 78 million people a year, today, the report says.

“Population is an evolving success story for the international community and the United Nations, but still more needs to be done,” Chamie said. Under current projections, world population will pass six billion by next year, and under the most likely projections is expected to hit nine billion by the year 2054.

By the year 2050, India is projected to be the world’s most populous country, with about 1.53 billion people, compared to 1.48 billion for China. Eighteen countries in all are expected to have populations in excess of 100 million people by then, compared to just 10 countries above that mark now.

Several countries have cut their fertility rates substantially in recent years, Chamie noted, including Brazil (where fertility declined to 2.5 children per family from a high of six), Kenya (where fertility has shrunk from eight children per couple to 4.5) and Vietnam (where average fertility has declined from six children per family to less than three).

Lower fertility has been accompanied by an aging of the population, especially in many European countries. In 1998, the number of people over the age of 60 exceeded the number of children younger than 15 in the developed world for the first time. Italy boasts 60 percent more older persons than children, while Greece, Japan, Spain and Germany all have between 40 percent and 50 percent more older persons than children, the report notes.