South Africa says 2.4 million people infected with HIV

South Africa's Health Ministry said the HIV infection rate had risen to 6% of the population from about 4.6% a year ago. Rose Smuts, Health Ministry AIDS expert, said that the estimated number of people infected with HIV was up to 2.4 million at the end of 1996 from 1.8 million a year earlier. "In 1997, about 90,000 people will progress to [advanced], of whom about 20,000 will be children," she said. Health Minister Nkosazana Zuma released results at the same news conference of the 1996 antenatal HIV survey, which showed that the infection rate among pregnant women attending state clinics rose nearly 35%. Anonymous testing of more than 15,000 pregnant women showed the infection rate up from 10.44% at the end of 1995 to 14.07% in 1996. Infections have almost doubled from 7.5% in 1994. "The sharp increase of 34.8% over the previous year confirms that South Africa is still experiencing a fast growing HIV epidemic," the Health Ministry said in a report. The highest infection rate and a threefold increase were recorded in Northwest Province, near Johannesburg, where positive tests jumped from 8.3% in 1995 to 25.13% in 1996. KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa's most populous province and previously the worst affected, showed a modest increase from 18.23% to 19.9% in 1996. The Western Cape, which includes Cape Town, showed the lowest infection rate of 1.65%, which was unchanged from the previous year. Zuma said that the doubling rate of HIV infection had slowed from 12 months to about 24 months, but she said that the emphasis should remain on the spread of the epidemic, which hits the working population hardest. Smuts said results of the antenatal survey could be extrapolated to a national infection rate of 6%, an 11% infection rate among all adults, and a 10% infection level among men aged 15-45 years.