The Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS), caused by the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) is a leading cause of mortality on the African continent and world. HIV and AIDS are among the greatest public health challenges confronting health authorities around the world. The greatest burden of HIV and AIDS is felt in sub-Saharan countries, with Nigeria and South Africa having the greatest incidence of the disease in the world. AIDS is the final stage of HIV infection, but with effective treatment and healthy living, HIV infection will not develop into AIDS. With increased awareness campaigns by national, regional and international health institutions, there has been an increased awareness on HIV and AIDS across the world. Using data from search query trends on HIV/AIDS submitted online on the most widely used search engine Google from 2004-2019, a decline in search interest for AIDS relative to HIV is revealed in South Africa. This trend mirrors progress on the ground in South Africa, with a decline in AIDS-related deaths and people living longer with the HIV virus. This observed trend might be an indicator that multilateral efforts at combating HIV/AIDS, particularly through awareness raising and behavioural interventions in South Africa is bearing fruit, not just on the ground, but also reflected in the online information seeking on the HIV/AIDS pandemic.
Background AIDS, caused by HIV, is a leading cause of mortality in Africa. HIV/AIDS is among the greatest public health challenges confronting health authorities, with South Africa having the greatest prevalence of the disease in the world. There is little research into how Africans meet their health information needs on HIV/AIDS online, and this research gap impacts programming and educational responses to the HIV/AIDS pandemic. Objective This paper reports on how, in general, interest in the search terms “HIV” and “AIDS” mirrors the increase in people living with HIV and the decline in AIDS cases in South Africa. Methods Data on search trends for HIV and AIDS for South Africa were found using the search terms “HIV” and “AIDS” (categories: health, web search) on Google Trends. This was compared with data on estimated adults and children living with HIV, and AIDS-related deaths in South Africa, from the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS, and also with search interest in the topics “HIV” and “AIDS” on Wikipedia Afrikaans, the most developed local language Wikipedia service in South Africa. Nonparametric statistical tests were conducted to support the trends and associations identified in the data. Results Google Trends shows a statistically significant decline (P<.001) in search interest for AIDS relative to HIV in South Africa. This trend mirrors progress on the ground in South Africa and is significantly associated (P<.001) with a decline in AIDS-related deaths and people living longer with HIV. This trend was also replicated on Wikipedia Afrikaans, where there was a greater interest in HIV than AIDS. Conclusions This statistically significant (P<.001) association between interest in the search terms “HIV” and “AIDS” in South Africa (2004-2019) and the number of people living with HIV and AIDS in the country (2004-2019) might be an indicator that multilateral efforts at combating HIV/AIDS—particularly through awareness raising and behavioral interventions in South Africa—are bearing fruit, and this is not only evident on the ground, but is also reflected in the online information seeking on the HIV/AIDS pandemic. We acknowledge the limitation that in studying the association between Google search interests on HIV/AIDS and cases/deaths, causal relationships should not be drawn due to the limitations of the data.
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