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Death rate trebles as AIDS crisis hits Cape
by Jo-Anne Smetherham
2001-04-17

The AIDS pandemic is hitting Cape Town as the number of related deaths has nearly trebled in three years. In the worst-hit areas of Khayelitsha, Langa and Guguletu, there are scores of funerals every weekend. At the cemetery in Khayelitsha alone, there are 25 to 30 burials each weekend. Undertakers say business in Langa and Guguletu is like a factory at weekends, with up to 20 burials at once. In the Cape Town administration area alone, which excludes Khayelitsha, northern suburbs and south Peninsula, the percentage of AIDS-related deaths has more than trebled - 474 people died of AIDS-related illnesses between July 1999 and June 2000. Three years earlier, the figure was 168. In Johannesburg and rural KwaZulu-Natal, death rates have rocketed because of AIDS. Jack Bloom of the Democratic Alliance said that, in Johannesburg alone, the number of funerals had doubled in the past five years from 15 000 to 30 000 a year and figures were expected to double again by 2005. At the Avalon cemetery in Soweto, between 100 and 150 people are buried every Saturday, Bloom said on an Internet news site. In Durban, death rates had increased 240 percent since 1994, mainly because of AIDS, said KwaZulu-Natal MEC for Agricultural and Environmental Affairs Arends Singh. Funerals had more than trebled since 1993/1994 to 8 983. (Source: Cape Times, 16 April 2001)

The AIDS pandemic is hitting Cape Town as the number of related deaths has nearly trebled in three years. In the worst-hit areas of Khayelitsha, Langa and Guguletu, there are scores of funerals every weekend. At the cemetery in Khayelitsha alone, there are 25 to 30 burials each weekend. Undertakers say business in Langa and Guguletu is like a factory at weekends, with up to 20 burials at once.

In the Cape Town administration area alone, which excludes Khayelitsha, northern suburbs and south Peninsula, the percentage of AIDS-related deaths has more than trebled - 474 people died of AIDS-related illnesses between July 1999 and June 2000. Three years earlier, the figure was 168. 

Nathan Greffen of the Treatment Action Campaign lobby group said on Monday the pandemic was a catastrophe for the city. The increase in deaths is extremely alarming for Cape Town and all of South Africa. It shows the predictions of insurance companies and epidemiologists - such as a huge drop in life expectancy to below 50 and stagnation due to an inactive economic workforce - could come true. But that is only if nothing is done. If the government adds a treatment plan to its prevention campaign, a large part of the catastrophe could be averted. The ABC (abstain, be faithful, condomise) campaign is not working.

Nyanga has been worst hit in the Cape Town administration area, with 306 AIDS-related deaths in 1999/2000, compared with 117 three years earlier. The figures, provided by the statistics section of the Cape Town administration of the City of Cape Town, are highly conservative as they are collated from death certificates, which often fail to cite AIDS as the cause of death. Reasons for masking the cause of death are that AIDS is not a notifiable disease and it carries a strong stigma in many communities.

An estimated 10 million South Africans will probably die of AIDS by 2015. HIV prevalence in the Western Cape has been set at around 7percent, low in comparison to that of KwaZulu-Natal (32,5 percent) and the Free State (28 percent). Cape Town was thought to be escaping the havoc inflicted by AIDS on other areas, but the sharp increase in AIDS-related deaths shows the pandemic could have equally devastating effects here.

Cape Town cemetery managers and undertakers could not ascertain how many deaths were AIDS-related, but said the number of deaths has been increasing and many cemeteries in Cape Town were running out of space. Some are more than 90 percent full. These include Stikland (99 percent), Kleinvlei (95 percent) and Klip (90 percent). Welmoed and Atlantis are estimated to be 10 percent full, but they will not be able to take bodies from the rest of the city indefinitely. We are heading for a catastrophe, said Theo Dix of Goodall and Williams Funerals.

In Johannesburg and rural KwaZulu-Natal, death rates have rocketed because of AIDS. Jack Bloom of the Democratic Alliance said that, in Johannesburg alone, the number of funerals had doubled in the past five years from 15 000 to 30 000 a year and figures were expected to double again by 2005. At the Avalon cemetery in Soweto, between 100 and 150 people are buried every Saturday, Bloom said on an Internet news site.

In Durban, death rates had increased 240 percent since 1994, mainly because of AIDS, said KwaZulu-Natal MEC for Agricultural and Environmental Affairs Arends Singh. Funerals had more than trebled since 1993/1994 to 8 983.

Source: Cape Times, 16 April 2001

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