A United Nations study reports AIDS is cutting life expectancy in many African countries and will dramatically reduce populations in the next 10 to 15 years. The researchers say AIDS has reached pandemic proportions in several of 34 sub-Saharan countries -- where at least one in four people is infected with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.

• In Botswana, life expectancy in the past five years has dropped from 61 years to 47 -- and is expected to drop to 41 between 2000 and 2005.

• In Zimbabwe, where one in every five adults is infected, the country's population growth has sunk from 3.3 percent a year between 1980 and 1985 to 1.4 percent now -- and is projected to grow by less than 1 percent by 2000.

• Of the 30 million persons in the world currently infected with HIV, 26 million -- or 86 percent -- live in these 34 countries.

• In addition, 91 percent of all AIDS deaths in the world have occurred in the 34 countries.

Experts also stress that AIDS is making its way through large countries like India, China and Brazil -- where huge populations result in a faster spread of the disease.

Most affected are people between 10 and 24 years old, and that age group accounts for half the total number of people infected.

Source: Youssef M. Ibrahim, "AIDS Is Slashing Africa's Population, U.N. Survey Finds," New York Times, October 28, 1998.

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