South Africans drink the most in Africa [Fact Check]

Africa’s first independent fact-checking organisation, Africa Check has confirmed the assertion that South Africans have the highest level of alcohol consumption in Africa.

The confirmation on Wednesday is based on a data released by the World Health Organisation covering the period between2008 and 2010 measured by production, import, export and sales statistics.

Per the data, each South African older than 15 consumes 11 litres of pure alcohol per year. This is the highest in Africa and also more than double the average for 53 African countries.

A senior technical officer in the WHO’s department of mental health and substance abuse, Dag Rekve, explained to Africa Check that where the datasets are not available, the WHO uses a combination of statistics from the Food and Agriculture Organisation, projections and a range of modeling techniques to work out alcohol intake over time.

“Given that South Africa, Namibia and Botswana feature among the heaviest drinkers, it is no surprise that southern Africa has the highest number of people dying of diseases caused by alcohol intake in the African region,” Africa Check alluded.

Below is the top ten countries with the highest alcohol intake in Africa (WHO)

• South Africa – 11.0 litres
• Gabon – 10.9 litres
• Namibia – 10.8 litres
• Nigeria – 10.1 litres
• Rwanda – 9.8 litres
• Uganda – 9.8 litres
• Burundi – 9.3 litres
• Sierra Leone – 8.7 litres
• Botswana – 8.4 litres
• Cameroon – 8.4 litres