Funerals for the young and gifted are held every week. We are burying teachers and politicians, trade unionists, doctors and students.

This year alone, we can expect some 120 000 AIDS funerals. In 10 years’€™ time, the epidemic could claim up to 635 000 people in a single year.

Overall, at least 3.5 million South Africans are already infected with HIV, a disease for which there is no cure. The best case scenario predicts six million South Africans will be HIV positive in 10 years’€™ time.

There is an impending catastrophe. And it is our youth — those in whom a nation invests for the future — who are bearing the brunt of this catastrophe.

A recent survey of students at the University of Durban-Westville showed that about 26% of women and 12% of men aged 20 to 24 were HIV infected. In students between the ages of 25 and 29 (mainly post-graduates), the figure was 36% of women and 23% men.

About 60% of adults who become HIV infected will do so before they turn 25. Young women are particularly at risk. Physiologically, it is easier for a woman to contract HIV than a man. Young girls often face sexual advances from older men who may already be infected.

Thus, almost three times as many girls as boys between the ages of 15 and 19 are becoming HIV positive. This figure evens out in the 20-24 category.

Young people are also losing their parents to the disease. In five years’€™ time, about 800 000 children under the age of 15 will be orphaned by AIDS. In 10 years’€™ time, there will be about 1.95 million AIDS orphans.

Many orphans will end up living on the streets where they will be vulnerable to sexual abuse and thus to HIV. Orphans’€™ educational opportunities will be reduced, and a lack of parental support and guidance will mean many will be more likely to develop anti-social tendencies.

While poor households with few reserves are hardest hit by HIV/AIDS, no one will be untouched by the epidemic.

For businesses, however, the most significant costs are likely to be indirect. These will arise from:

• lower productivity as a result of sickness;
• absent employees, who are either sick, caring for sick relatives or attending funerals;
• lost skills, training and recruitment costs.

It will be very costly for companies to retrain highly skilled employees ‘€“ 15% of whom are expected to be HIV positive by 2010.

The markets for certain goods and services ‘€“ especially non-essential goods ‘€“ may decline as households have less disposable income. However, the market for health and funeral services will increase. But this will result in a greater burden on the state as demands on the public healthcare system increase and there are more paupers’€™ burials.

Economic growth is likely to be affected by the loss of skilled workers, a decline in savings as families use up their resources on healthcare, and by a reduction in government investment in infrastructure as its HIV/AIDS spending increases.

While it is too late to save those already infected by HIV, there is still a considerable opportunity to prevent new infections amongst teenagers who are still learning sexual behaviour, and are thus more open to safer sex options such as condoms.

These youth are our future, and they are the focus of the national loveLife prevention initiative.

[All statistics from “The Impending Catastrophe: A resource book on the emerging HIV/AIDS epidemic in South Africa” produced by Abt. Assoc. (South Africa) Inc. and published by loveLife. The full report is available at www.lovelife.org]