RESUMEN
The paper aims to estimate the extent to which migrants are contributing to AIDS or tuberculosis (TB) mortality among rural sub-district populations. The Agincourt (South Africa) health and socio-demographic surveillance system provided comprehensive data on vital and migration events between 1994 and 2006. AIDS and TB cause-deleted life expectancy, and crude death rates by gender, migration status and period were computed. The annualised crude death rate almost tripled from 5·39 [95% CI 5·13-5·65] to 15·10 [95% CI 14·62-15·59] per 1000 over the years 1994-2006. The contribution of AIDS and TB in returned migrants to the increase in crude death rate was 78·7% [95% CI 77·4-80·1] for males and 44·4% [95% CI 43·2-46·1] for females. So, in a typical South African setting dependent on labour migration for rural livelihoods, the contribution of returned migrants, many infected with AIDS and TB, to the burden of disease is high.
