A booklet entitled HIV/AIDS profile in the provinces of South Africa: Indicators for 2002, has recently been released. It makes provincial trends and statistics on the HIV/AIDS epidemic available to government officials at all levels, as well as to business people, non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and the public. The report gives readers a sense of the magnitude of the numbers involved, and will allow them to benchmark other information about the epidemic as it becomes available.

The booklet can be downloaded from www.mrc.ac.za or www.assa.org.za/aidsmodel.asp or www.commerce.uct.ac.za/care , and is also available from the University of Cape Town's (UCT's) Centre for Actuarial Research at R30 per hardcopy ( tel: +27 (0) 21 650 2475).

The estimates provided are not new - in fact, they have been available for the last year on the Actuarial Society of South Africa's website - but it is the first time they have been compiled into one publication for ease of access.

The indicators are based on a model constructed by the Actuarial Society of South Africa (ASSA). While there is always a degree of uncertainty surrounding such estimates, models can provide an invaluable tool for giving a sense of possible future scenarios. The ASSA model is continuously being improved as more data become available and our understanding of the dynamics of the epidemic improve.

Some of the information available in the report:

* The extent of the epidemic, with 6,5 million people (14,2% of the population) infected with HIV by July 2002.

* Of these, over 95% (6,1 million) are in the age group 18-64 years (labour force age).

* Prevalence is highest (25,9%) among young women of child-bearing age - this, in turn, has implications in terms of numbers of orphans.

* Prevalence of HIV/AIDS (among all ages) in each of the provinces is as follows:
KwaZulu-Natal 18,4%
Free State 16,7%
Mpumalanga 16,5%
Gauteng 16,0%
North West 15,1%
Eastern Cape 11,3%
Limpopo 11,0%
Northern Cape 7,9%
Western Cape 4,2%

Professor Rob Dorrington, UCT's Centre for Actuarial Research Tel: +27 (0) 21 650 2467

Dr Debbie Bradshaw, MRC's Burden of Disease Research Unit Cell: 082 461 1234

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