section_path: Demographics/Health/HIV/AIDS
section_name: AIDS
paragraph_text: AIDS
  
  According to the 2015 UNAIDS medical report, South Africa has an estimated seven million people who are living with HIV – more than any other country in the world. In 2018, HIV prevalence—the percentage of people living with HIV—among adults (15–49 years) was 20.4%, and in the same year 71,000 people died from an AIDS-related illness.
  
  A 2008 study revealed that HIV/AIDS infection is distinctly divided along racial lines: 13.6% of blacks are HIV-positive, whereas only 0.3% of whites have the virus. Most deaths are experienced by economically active individuals, resulting in many AIDS orphans who in many cases depend on the state for care and financial support. It is estimated that there are 1,200,000 orphans in South Africa.
  
  The link between HIV, a virus spread primarily by sexual contact, and AIDS was long denied by President Thabo Mbeki and his health minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, who insisted that the many deaths in the country are caused by malnutrition, and hence poverty, and not HIV. In 2007, in response to international pressure, the government made efforts to fight AIDS. After the 2009 general elections, President Jacob Zuma appointed Aaron Motsoaledi as the health minister and committed his government to increasing funding for and widening the scope of HIV treatment, and by 2015, South Africa had made significant progress, with the widespread availability of antiretroviral drugs resulted in an increase in life expectancy from 52.1 years to 62.5 years.