HIV stats in KZN still high

KWAZULU-Natal accounts for a third of the 1 000 new HIV infections recorded daily in South Africa.

According to the South African Institute of Race Relations, there are 298 new HIV infections in KwaZulu-Natal every day. These figures are contained in a survey that is part of the institute’s annual yearbook on all social, economic and political aspects of South Africa, published every year since 1946.

The data used was obtained from a Department of Health publication entitled ‘The 2011 National Antenatal Sentinel HIV and Syphilis Prevalence Survey in South Africa’. Although 1 000 new infections in South Africa each day seems high, this figure represents a decrease of more than 50 percent since 1999.

In 2011 KwaZulu-Natal had 108 594 new infections, 8 961 or eight percent of which were accounted for by children under the age of 15. In total, some 1.1 percent of the province’s population was newly infected with HIV that year.

Following KwaZulu-Natal, Gauteng had 71 637 new infections, the equivalent of 196 daily. Of these, 5 912 or eight percent were accounted for by children. Some 0.6 percent of the provincial population was newly infected.

There were only 9 537 new infections in the Western Cape, which translates to 26 new infections daily. Of these, 787 or eight percent were new child infections. Only 0.2 percent of the Western Cape population was newly infected, the lowest proportion of all the provinces.

In the whole country, there were 352 360 new infections in 2011, some 29 068 or eight percent of which were child infections. People who were newly infected in 2011 accounted for 0.7 percent of South Africa’s population. Approximately 1 000 people get infected with HIV daily in South Africa.