Despite the world's largest ARV programme, HIV continues to be SA's leading cause of death

A South African Medical Research Council (SAMRC ) study has revealed that HIV remains one of the leading causes of death in the country.

This is despite South Africa having the world's largest antiretroviral therapy (ART) programme, providing treatment to over 3.4 million HIV-infected individuals through antiretroviral (ARV) drugs.

According to Dr Pamela Groenewald, a specialist at the SAMRC, the study compared the causes of death reported on official death certificates with data from medical records, forensic reports and verbal interviews.

Groenewald stated the research found that there was poor 'agreement' overall with only about 36% of causes matching and that there was also significant underreporting of HIV death.

"We found that there was very poor agreement overall, with only about 36% causes matching for over 15,000 linked deaths. There was significant underreporting of HIV and Aids and also of misclassification of injury-related death, especially suicide," Groenewald told NewZroom Afrika.

She further added that HIV remains the leading cause of death, accounting for 23% of all deaths, adding that there was a strong link between HIV and TB with TB responsible for about 45% of the deaths of people with HIV.

"If you have TB and HIV in a person, it's the HIV that caused the person to have TB. So HIV would be the underlying cause of death in those cases.

"And then 63% of all TB deaths occur in individuals with HIV"

The study also found that homicide and road traffic accidents have moved into the top 10 causes of death in the country.

"The other thing we found is homicide and road traffic accidents moved up into the top 10 causes of death, which are not in the top in the official causes of death data,"

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