The minister of health, Dr Aaron Motsoaledi, has blamed Thabo Mbeki and his administration for the Aids pandemic in South Africa. Dr Motsoaledi referred to a report that South Africa had 0.7% of the world's population but 17% of people infected with HIV and Aids. The Young Communist League has gone even further and called for Thabo Mbeki and his health minister to be charged with genocide. Data the Institute has published in its annual South Africa Survey this month shows the extent of the death and suffering inflicted on black South Africans by the Mbeki administration's HIV and Aids policies.
The South Africa Survey was published this week. Its 729 pages of data on economic, social, and political trends on South Africa places the progress made in the country since 1994 in context. Eight pages are devoted to HIV/Aids trends, indicators, and forecasts, and echo what the health minister said last week.
The data shows that approximately 5.7 million South Africans were living with HIV/Aids in 2009. Eighteen percent of the adult population was infected. Half a million new infections were recorded in 2009. Over 300 000 people died of Aids-related illness in 2008 including 47 000 children under the age of 14. In total, to July 2009, 2.9 million South Africans had died. Approximately half of all deaths in the country were related to HIV/Aids.
African South Africans carried almost the entire brunt of the pandemic. Their total infection rate in 2008 was 13.6% compared to 1.7% for coloured people and 0.3% for white and Indian people.
The consequences for South Africa's social and family relations have been devastating. The number of Aids orphans living in South Africa was estimated at between 1.1 million and 1.4 million in 2007. The number is expected to rise to just under 2 million by 2010. A figure of as many as 700 000 child-headed households has been estimated. The psychological damage to poor black communities is immeasurable.
South Africa's infection rate was far higher than the 5% average for sub-Saharan Africa, and the 0.3% average for North Africa and the middle-east. Infection rates for the rest of the world were without exception lower than 1%.