HIV/AIDS eats into progress on infant mortality

Advances made by Namibia in reducing the nation's infant mortality rate during the past 10 years, are being offset by the impact of HIV/AIDS on the population, 'The Namibian' said in an editorial on Wednesday. "The latest United Nations Human Development Report on Namibia reveals some dismal news, which offsets the good that is being done in a few areas, particularly with regard to infant mortality." In its latest human development report, the UN said that the infant mortality rate had improved from 104 deaths out every 1,000 babies born on 1970, to 58 in 1997. Similarly the under-five mortality rate for every 1,000 children had dropped from 155 in 1970 to 75 in 1997. It was ranked Namibia at 115 out of the 170 countries surveyed, achieving a level of medium human development. However, HIV/AIDS is eroding many of these gains. The report said that in 1997 there were 420 AIDS cases for every 100,000 Namibians. The Southern African country currently has a population of about 1.6 million people, a figure expected to reach 2 million in 2015. The report said that between 1975 and 1997, the population grew by an annual rate of about 2.7 percent. But this rate was expected to drop by about 1.3 percent annually in the 1997-2015 period because of the impact of HIV/AIDS. HIV/AIDS has also slashed an estimated five years off the average life expectancy in Namibia. In 1989, most Namibians were expected to live to age of 57, but in 1997 this figure had dropped to 52. "This again proves that AIDS is the number one killer in Namibia, and is undoubtedly the greatest threat to the country's economic and human development," the editorial noted. It added: "So while Namibia is fighting down statistics of child mortality, adults are dying at an earlier age." In its recent Progress Of Nations Report, UNICEF noted that by the year 2005, 48 percent of all child deaths under the age of five will be because of AIDS. It added that number of children between the ages of 0 and 14 who were living with HIV/AIDS had tripled between 1994 and 1997, with nearly 110 children for every 10,000 having lost one or both parents to the disease. The UNICEF report said that an estimated 11 percent of pregnant girls reporting to ante-natal clinics were found to be HIV-positive.