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HIV/AIDS not seen as serious - survey

    JOHANNESBURG

    The latest Afrobarometer survey by the Institute for Democracy in South Africa (IDASA), suggests that ordinary Africans do not share professional forecasts on the impact of HIV/AIDS on the continent.

    IDASA public opinion service programme manager, Bob Mattes, said interviews with 23,000 adults showed that many people, especially in east and southern Africa, had either lost family or friends to the pandemic, or suffered significant AIDS-related burdens.

    "Yet ordinary Africans do not share the experts' forecasts of the dire consequences of the pandemic," Mattes was quoted by the South African Press Association as saying.

    With the exceptions of South Africa, Namibia, and Botswana, African publics were not even convinced HIV/AIDS constituted a public problem worthy of government attention.

    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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