South Africa had legacy of apartheid policies that created a fragmented health care system. Like the United States the country has a health system that includes both private and public health care facilities. In 1994, after the first democratic election, an unprecedented wave of policy reform and institutional change began.
One of the first things to happen concerning health care was the government started providing free primary care for everyone, free care for pregnant women, and free care to children under the age of six. The country plans on implementing free universal primary care but estimate that the plan would take ten years to implement.
Life expectancy at birth is 48.09 years. South Africa infant mortality rate and that of the United States shows an enormous disparity, 60.33 and 6.3. This indicates that there are other factors that play a role in infant mortality.
Incidences of disease in the country are tuberculosis the most prevalent with Malaria ranked second. Health officials attribute the high incidences of these infectious diseases in poor areas to inadequate clean water and sewage disposal systems. Although HIV/AIDS has a high prevalence rate many health officials are more concerned with the incidences of tuberculosis since tuberculosis causes 36 deaths each day while AIDS accounts for one death per day. The leading causes of death in South Africa as of 1996 were heart disease, cancerous tumors, and infectious and parasitic conditions.
Although still developing they have well-developed financial, legal, communication, energy, and transport sectors. With gold one of the abundant resources available, South Africa�s stock exchange ranks among the ten largest in the world.