USING GIS AND CAC TO THEMATICALLY MAP THE PREVALENCE OF HIV/AIDS AND ITS DEMOGRAPHIC CONSEQUENCES ACROSS FOUR

SUB-SAHARAN COUNTRIES IN AFRICA

Pillay, R
University of the North, P. O. Box 3604, 0699 Pietersburg. Limpopo Province, South Africa. Fax: Int+(0)15-268-2892 or 268-2323. E-mail: PillayR@unin.unorth.ac.za 1. BACKGROUND

With the onset of the new millennium Sub-Saharan Africa is currently the epicenter of HIV/AIDS infection with 23.3m at the beginning of 2000. Thats 70% of world infections in an area that has only 10% of the global population. The HIV/AIDS disease knows no boundaries, but spatial epidemiology through cartographical analysis may yield vital clues as to HIV distribution (clustered or random) across communities with different norms and socio-economic status. Cartographic and GIS techniques would also assist in developing measures for monitoring the geographical spread of the HIV/AIDS pandemic over three years in four countries across sub-Saharan Africa. 2. METHODS

A base map for the HIV/AIDS mapping would be constructed for the purpose of HIV/AIDS spatial portrayal. Using ArcView GIS, HIV/AIDS data from four countries are cartographically mapped retrospectively from 1997 to 2000 to show current trends in the spread of the virus. Further, choropleth techniques would show the rates of incidence of the HI virus per administrative district level for two countries over four years and also look at some consequences to their respective district populations. The accumulative effect of an increase in HIV/AIDS per district over a set period: 1997 to 2000 would also be spatially portrayed via choropleth mapping. 3. RESULTS

Whiteside and Sunter (2000) reckons that AIDS claims 5 500m men, women and children everyday in Africa. Studies conducted in both rural and urban areas in nine different African countries showed more women affected than men (13:10); this is continuing to skew the demography of many African countries with men outnumbering women. An interesting turnaround in HIV/AIDS prevalence is only visible in Uganda. In many of the other African countries a mortality decline by 25% between 1997 and 2004 and life expectancy from about 66 to 49years by 2004 is quite possible. South Africa is most frightening with the KwaZulu-Natal Province being consistently high at 32.5%. In 1998, Mpumalanga had the second highest prevalence rate (30%) but dropped to 27.9% in 1999 putting the province in the third place behind the Free State. One of the lowest prevalence is the Limpopo (Northern) Province (LP), where a sample survey in 2000, based on 1808 blood specimens, found 238 (13.2%) women attending ANCs to be HIV positive. This was a 1.77% increase from 1999s 11.43% and a 5% increase from the 1997s 8.2% (DOH, 2000). Botswana, on the other hand, has attained the highest prevalence rates of adult HIV prevalence projected to increase from 22% (190 000) in 1997 to 33% by 2015 and child mortality from AIDS would marginally reduce from 121.1 (1998) to only 119.5 (2010). Possible HIV predictions for these four countries over the 2003 period would also be highlighted. 4. CONCLUSION

The spatial dynamics of this pandemic can be portrayed using Cartographic and GIS techniques e.g. choropleth mapping of HIV/AIDS data. Moreover, the emerging patterns of the spread of HIV/AIDS, within the different districts, of the four selected countries over a three year period may provide some guidelines to the possible trend that HIV/AIDS would take over the next four year cycle and its associated impact to key demographic indicators. This however, must be met with the appropriate clinical, educational and social programs to secure some control or curtailment on the spatial spread of the HI virus in sub-Saharan Africa by 2004.

Proceedings of the 21st International Cartographic Conference (ICC) Cartographic Renaissance ISBN: 0-958-46093-0

Durban, South Africa, 10 16 August 2003 Hosted by The International Cartographic Association (ICA) Produced by: Document Transformation Technologies

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USING GIS AND CAC TO THEMATICALLY MAP THE PREVALENCE OF HIV/AIDS AND ITS DEMOGRAPHIC CONSEQUENCES ACROSS FOUR SUB-SAHARAN COUNTRIES IN AFRICA
Pillay, R
University of the North, P. O. Box 3604, 0699 Pietersburg. Limpopo Province, South Africa. Fax: Int+(0)15-268-2892 or 268-2323. E-mail: PillayR@unin.unorth.ac.za Biography Rajendran (Ray) Pillay is employed as a Cartographer and GIS Lecturer in the School of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences at The University of The North (UNIN), in Polokwane, Limpopo Province, South Africa. At the University he teaches Cartography, Computer-assisted Cartography (CAC), GIS and GIS Application, Spatial Epidemiology and HIV/AIDS and its impact on demography from second to fourth years. He also teaches aspects of Research Methodology and Research techniques to Geography Honours students as well as to the Agricultural Extension and Environmental Management MPhil students at UNIN. He has studied Geography and Information Science in his undergraduate years and also read for the BSc (Hons) in Geography in South Africa. He has also attended the post-graduate Cartography program at The International Institute for Aerospace Survey and Earth Sciences (ITC) in The Netherlands, where he specialized in Thematic Cartography. He has also studied GIS in South Africa and ESRI (USA). His research interests span over a wide sector of thematic cartography, GIS Applications and Spatial Epidemiology and also recently has been working on the Socio-economic and demographic aspects of HIV/AIDS with particular reference to HIV prevalence levels at the meso and macro scales in both South Africa and SADC and also within certain countries in Sub-Saharan Africa.

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