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Article: Counting the cost of denial; South Africa.(The South Africans still argue over AIDS)
- Article from:
- The Economist (US)
- Article date:
- February 5, 2005
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2005 Economist Newspaper Ltd. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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New efforts to assess the epidemic
WHAT is the death toll from AIDS in South Africa? There is no easy answer. Graveyards and memorial pages in newspapers make it plain that young people, especially women, are dying in droves. Last month Nelson Mandela, the former president, said that one of his sons had died of AIDS. Official figures from 2003 show 5.6m people infected, in a population of 45m. But death statistics are much murkier. According to a model developed by the Actuarial Society of South Africa, 1.2m South Africans had died of AIDS by the middle of last year.
A mortality report by the official statistics agency is due out this week, describing ...