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Men outnumber women due to AIDS

    JOHANNESBURG

    South African men now outnumber their female counterparts due to the effects of HIV/AIDS on society, the local Cape Times reported on Wednesday.

    Alan Whiteside, director of the University of Natal's Health Economics and HIV/AIDS Research Division, said, "This is social engineering like we have never seen before, and it is a critical question no one has addressed."

    "The natural gender balance was that there were slightly fewer adult men than women. Now there is a ratio of 120 males to 100 females," Whiteside said.

    He also said there was little evidence that South Africa was dealing with the future impact of HIV/AIDS, and cautioned that if current trends continued, one million people a year would require care by 2007.

    Whiteside was addressing a recent Medical Research Council (MRC) AIDS forum.

    This article was produced by IRIN News while it was part of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Please send queries on copyright or liability to the UN. For more information: https://shop.un.org/rights-permissions

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