- The impact of HIV/AIDS on South Africa was investigated by a July 2003 World Bank report, which added to the controversy surrounding the pandemic.
- Presenting some of the report’s theoretical projections as actual forecasts, media reports warned that South Africa’s economy would collapse within three generations if the pandemic was not addressed more effectively.
- The report argues that AIDS affects large numbers of people when they are at their most productive. It also argues that the consequent reduction in human capital has a seriously detrimental effect on any country’s economic growth.
- Commenting on the report, Stephen Kramer, one of the country’s foremost experts on the epidemic, said that the report failed to take into account: the heterogeneity of and inequalities in South African society; the dynamic nature of individual and household responses to the threat; and the prevalence of women-headed households in South Africa
