Doctors vastly under-report deaths from HIV, MRC report finds
The MRC says HIV was responsible for 23.3% of all deaths in the eight months to April 2018, while Stats SA said only 4.9% of registered deaths were due to HIV in that period
05 March 2025 - 13:24
UPDATED 05 March 2025 - 23:18
Doctors are under-reporting HIV as the cause of death on official forms and inadvertently undermining the government’s ability to monitor the effect of its programmes to counter the epidemic, a new study by the SA Medical Research Council (MRC) shows.
HIV was responsible for almost a quarter (23.3%) of all deaths in an eight-month period to April 2018, making it the leading cause of death, the MRC found. This is in sharp contrast to official statistics from Stats SA, which showed only 4.9% of registered deaths were due to HIV in this period, and that it was the fifth leading cause of death...
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