Life expectancy in some parts of Africa has dropped to below 33 years

Main Category: HIV / AIDS
Article Date: 15 Jul 2004 - 16:00 PDT

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Life expectancy in some parts of Africa has dropped to below 33 years as the AIDS epidemic takes its toll in the region, says the Human Development Report, 2004 (United Nations).

The report looks at 177 countries and ranks them according to quality of life. Such factors as health, health care services, education, life expectancy and standard of living are taken into account.

For the fourth year running Norway is number 1. Sierra Leone is number 177.

THE TOP TEN ARE:

1 Norway
2 Sweden
3 Australia
4 Canada
5 Netherlands
6 Belgium 7 Iceland

8 US
9 Japan
10 Ireland
The UK was number 12.

THE BOTTOM TEN ARE:

167 Chad
168 DR Congo
169 Central African Republic
170 Ethiopia
171 Mozambique
172 Guinea-Bissau
173 Burundi
174 Mali
175 Burkina Faso
176 Niger
177 Sierra Leone

Experts say that the greatest disparity between the top and bottom countries is when life expectancy is measured. A Norwegian baby is expected to live about 78.9 years while a Zambian is expected to live 32.4. 16.5% of Zambia's population has AIDS.

AIDS has destroyed many facets of society in some African countries. Some countries are seeing economic reversals, drops in education provision as well as health care and loss of infrastructure.

Of the 38 million people who have AIDS in the world, 25 million are in Africa.