The Boston Globe has reported that the US intelligence community is now assuming that HIV infections in Africa will double in the next five years, based on analysis by the National Intelligence Council (NIC). The Council predicts that more than 60 million Africans could be infected by 2007.
David F.Gordon, an NIC specialist on health and economic issues, told a recent Institute of Medicine seminar in Washington D.C. that countries such as “Ethiopia and Nigeria may be at the takeoff point, where the epidemic becomes much, much, much more serious in the next five years. If indeed that is the case, if we are in a situation in Nigeria and Ethiopia parallel to that in 1992, 93, 94 [to that in southern Africa] and we do have a big run-up in prevalence, it’s not inconceivable that the number of HIV infections could double in the next five years” he said.
Levels of HIV infection may already have reached 10% in both countries, and as Africa’s most populous country, a move towards southern African levels of infection would have disastrous consequences for Nigeria. In 1999, the Central Intelligence Agency estimated that Nigeria already had 2.7 million people infected with HIV. The total population is estimated at 125 million, with more than 50 million under the age of 16.
The NIC is considered to be a reliable forecasting agency by others in the field, having correctly predicted in 1991 that 45 million would be infected by 2000.
Africa not the only region set for explosive growth
The remarks follow a recent declaration by the Russian Health Ministry that between 5 and 10 million males aged 15 to 20 could contract HIV within the next five years, while UNAIDS has predicted that China could face 20 million infections by 2020, despite signs that the Chinese government is waking up to the epidemic.
Last week epidemiologists reported that the rate of growth of new infections appeared to have slowed in South Africa.