July 28, 2004, 20:15
South Africa has one million fewer HIV/Aids cases than previous estimates, officials said on Wednesday, although the death toll remains alarming in the country battling the world's largest Aids epidemic.
Government statistics agency Stats SA said an estimated 3.83 million South Africans were HIV positive, compared with the five million cases estimated by bodies such as the United Nations.
Aids has killed around 1.49 million South Africans, the agency said. The US Bureau for Census's estimate is 3 million deaths.
Stats SA attributed the lower count to "differences in assumptions" about the spread of the disease, but researchers said the figures should not be seen as supporting those who say the pandemic has been exaggerated.
Heston Phillips, Stats SA executive manager of demographic analysis, said the study analysed various official data, including causes of death and census statistics, and was in line with other local studies including that of the Actuarial Society of South Africa (ASSA).
Most other estimates of HIV prevalence have been based on data collected from pregnant women at clinics, extrapolating national figures from a relatively small section of the population.
Phillips said while ASSA put the HIV positive population at 5.26 million in 2000, it lowered the figure to 3.7 million in 2002 after changing its methodology.
"The estimates by ASSA are now much more in line with what Stats SA has been saying," he said.
Earlier this year, a furious debate erupted when a Kenyan study appeared to dispute a widely used method for calculating the scope of the disease, dramatically revising downward that country's estimate of HIV cases.
Shortly afterwards, a prominent South African journalist outraged activists by suggesting the size of Africa's Aids pandemic had been inflated by activists to attract aid.
South Africa's government has come under attack from activists for responding too slowly to the epidemic. Officials have retorted that Aids should be seen as only one of a plethora of health problems in the country. - Reuters
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