AIDS in developing nations.

The AIDS epidemic will likely increase child mortality in developing countries, reversing decades of improvement in child-survival rates, according to a report by the United States Census Bureau.

Levels of infant and child mortality in Zambia for example, are now 15% higher than a decade ago and have clear links to HIV/AIDS, say the authors of World Population Profile: 1994. Over 20% of pregnant women in the Zambian city of Lusaka tested positive for HIV in 1990, putting their children at risk of infection. But even noninfected children are endangered by AIDS deaths of parents.

AIDS will also significantly increase the death rate and affect life-spans in countries like Brazil, Haiti, and Thailand. By 2010, the death rate due to AIDS will double in Haiti and triple in Thailand. Peter Way, one of the report's authors, says that, "by the year 2010, average life expectancy in Haiti will plummet to 44 years. Without AIDS it would be 59 years. In Uganda, expectation of life at birth will fall to 32 years, whereas without AIDS it would be 59 years."

Despite these impacts, "AIDS will not succeed in overcoming the momentum of population growth in most affected countries, particularly sub-Saharan Africa," according to the report. The area's high growth rate will offset the deaths brought about by AIDS. On the other hand, AIDS has the potential to reverse the population growth of developing countries in Asia and Latin America because of the initially lower rates of fertility.

The authors of the report acknowledge that "AIDS has already begun to substantially revise our thinking about patterns and trends of mortality in countries around the world."

Source: World Population Profile: 1994, U.S. Department of Commerce, Economics and Statistics Administration, Bureau of the Census, Washington. D.C. 20230. Telephone 301/763-4040.