South Africa
South Africa
Population: 57.78 million
GDP Growth: 1.1%
Urban Population: 33%
Rural Population: 67%
The southernmost country of the African continent, South Africa is bordered by Namibia, Botswana, Zimbabwe and Eswatini. South Africa entirely surrounds Lesotho in the east.
Contact Details
Unit 2 Waterfront Office Park
266 West Avenue, Cnr Republic Road
Randburg, 2194
South Africa
Partners
Celeste Matross Country Director
Makananelo Sylvia Makape Program Manager
Issues affecting children and young people in South Africa
South Africa has a generalised, hyperendemic HIV epidemic, and is home to the largest number of people living with HIV (6.4 million). Trends show a growing HIV epidemic among the general population in South Africa, with prevalence rising from 10.6% in 2008 to 12.2% in 2012.
Prevalence is presumed to have risen as a result of the effects of increased ART coverage and subsequent decrease in mortality. Evidence shows a decrease in the total number of people dying from AIDS from 300 000 in 2010 to 270 000 in 2011, to 136 000 in 2014.
Despite this progress, HIV burden for the general population remains high. There are great variations by province, from 5% in the Western Cape to 17% in KwaZulu-Natal, though there are hot spots within lower prevalence provinces. There are more PLHIV in the City of Durban that in the whole of Brazil.
There is also a wide variation of disease burden across age, race, gender, socio-economic status. Further, according to SANAC, HIV prevalence also varies greatly by age and sex, with women age 30-34 having the highest burden, at 36%, and young men age 15-19 having the lowest, at 0.7% (Figure 1.1.2). Importantly, this age disaggregated data highlights the disproportionately elevated vulnerability of young women and girls compared to their male peers. Adolescent girls 15-19 are eight times more likely to be living with HIV than boys in the same age group, and young women (20-24 years) are 3.4 times more likely. These data point to a dire need to address the socio-structural factors, which place young women and girls at higher HIV risk.
REPSSI work in South Africa
