Tamar Kahn: Business Day,

THE Health Department has rejected the Development Bank of Southern Africa's (DBSA's) claim that 7,6-million South Africans are infected with HIV, saying the figures are at odds with numerous surveys conducted by the government and independent researchers. The Health Department put HIV prevalence at 5,4-million in 2006, a figure broadly in line with the findings of the United Nations, the Actuarial Society of SA and the Human Sciences Research Council. Health Department spokesman Sibane Mngadi said that the DBSA figures should be subjected to peer review. The Actuarial Society also questioned the bank's estimates, saying the DBSA figures reported at the weekend by THE SUNDAY INDEPENDENT appeared to be based on an outdated model that overestimated the prevalence of HIV. Demographer Rob Dorrington said the bank's figures matched those of the "Assa 2000" model, which had not incorporated the effect of prevention and treatment programmes. The model had been updated twice, and a third revision was under way, he said. The DBSA's Johan Calitz, who is leading the bank's HIV research, would neither retract nor stand by his figures. Calitz said the DBSA had yet to finalise its HIV study, which was trying to gauge the effect of the epidemic at local authority level. He had used different data sources from other researchers, including mortuaries, funeral parlours, hospitals and local authority surveys, so it was likely his findings would differ, Calitz said, adding that he thought that his data would be higher than the rest. The Democratic Alliance took the DBSA figures at face value, and said it planned to ask questions in Parliament about the reliability of the government's data.