One would think at some point this must reduce gold production & or increase the cost of their production:
AIDS Projected to Ravage South African Economy
Canadian Presse
Monday July 03, 2000
KATLEHONG, South Africa - A group of 20 teenage boys jostle for the ball during a carefree afternoon soccer game. In the coming years, half of those exuberant children will die a slow death from AIDS if statistics hold, triggering a devastating demographic catastrophe.
The population is projected to stop growing, businesses to be crushed and the continent's most developed economy to be badly damaged. "This is a disaster," said Marothi Ramaube, an official with the South African Business Council on HIV/AIDS. "We know it's massive. How massive we don't know."
An estimated 4.2 million South Africans, 10 per cent of the population, are currently infected with AIDS or the virus that causes AIDS.
That number is expected to double by 2006, with many becoming infected as they enter what should be their most productive years.
If the disease is not reined in, more than half of all the 15-year-old boys in South Africa will die of AIDS in their lifetime, according to a United Nations study released Tuesday in advance of the 13th International AIDS Conference, which starts Sunday in the coastal city of Durban. (cont)
newsmax.com |
