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AIDS Cuts Life Expectancy in Many African Countries,
Census Bureau Notes in World Population Profile
AIDS has cut life expectancy by four years in Nigeria, 18 years in Kenya and 26 years in Zimbabwe -- only a few of the countries where mortality from the disease is having a major demographic impact, the Commerce Department's Census Bureau reported today.
"AIDS results in higher mortality rates in childhood, as well as among young adults where mortality otherwise is low," said Karen Stanecki, a contributing author of the Census Bureau's new report, World Population Profile: 1998. "As a result, AIDS deaths will have a larger impact on life expectancies than on some other demographic indicators in these nations."
The Census Bureau assessment shows 21 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa are significantly affected by AIDS. According to the report, HIV/AIDS epidemics continue to spread in Sub-Saharan Africa, particularly in Botswana and South Africa. Other severely affected countries include Namibia, Swaziland, Zambia and Zimbabwe, where 18 to 25 percent of all adults are HIV-positive.
Seven developing countries in Asia and Latin America also are significantly affected -- Guyana, Burma, Haiti, Cambodia, Honduras, Brazil and Thailand.
In addition to the update on AIDS mortality worldwide, World Population Profile: 1998 provides a comprehensive picture of population size and growth, fertility and mortality levels, and age structure in 227 countries and territories during the next quarter century.
The report also examines trends in family planning likely to play a key role in determining fertility and natural population increases during the coming decades.
Other points from the report:
- The world population will reach 6 billion in 1999.
- Between 1998 and 2025, the world's elderly population (age 65 and
over) will more than double while the world's young (under age 15)
will grow by only 6 percent.
- Early in the next century, international migration will become more of
a critical variable in population growth in the United States and
other developed countries, where the balance of births and deaths will
otherwise lead to a stable or decreasing population.
- About 96 percent of world population increase now occurs in the
developing regions of Africa, Asia and Latin America.
- A child born in Latin America or Asia can expect to live between
seven and 13 fewer years, on average, than one born in North America
or Western Europe.
- An estimated 120 million married women in the world's developing
regions have an "unmet need" for contraceptive services and products,
meaning they would like to regulate their
fertility but currently are not using any means of contraception.
Data in the report are from the Census Bureau's International Data Base, HIV/AIDS Surveillance Data Base and unpublished tables.
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