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Joan Stephenson, PhD

JAMA. 2001;286:2225.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 143 words of the full text and any section headings.

AIDS is now responsible for 25% of all deaths in South Africa and for 40% of deaths in people between the ages of 15 and 49 years, according to a new report by the South African Medical Research Council. The report, The Impact of HIV/AIDS on Adult Mortality in South Africa, is available online at http://www.mrc.ac.za. "The projections show that, without treatment to prevent AIDS, the number of AIDS deaths can be expected to grow, within the next 10 years, to more than double the number of deaths due to all other causes, resulting in 5 to 7 million cumulative AIDS deaths in South Africa by 2010," the report notes.

The South African government has been widely criticized for downplaying the HIV/AIDS epidemic, and the governmental statistical office disputed the report's conclusions. The council stands by its findings.