'A tidal wave of orphans'

2004-07-13 09:54

Bangkok - Aids orphans in sub-Saharan Africa will top 18 million by 2010 and the pandemic threatens a "tidal wave" of death affecting children worldwide, the UN and US warned on Tuesday.

The number of children who have lost one or both parents to Aids will surge by more than 50 percent from the current 12.3 million in the region worst ravaged by the Aids pandemic, according to a joint report by the United Nations AIDS agency, the children's agency UNICEF and the US Agency for International Development (USAID).

In sub-Saharan Africa, "since 2000, 3.8 million children have lost one or both parents to Aids, and by 2010, 18.4 million children - more than one in three orphans - will have lost parents to Aids," stated the report titled "Children on the Brink 2004".

"The orphan crisis is arguably the cruellest legacy of this whole pandemic," UNICEF executive director Carol Bellamy told a briefing at the 15th and largest International Aids conference being held this week in Bangkok.

"A tidal wave of orphaning" is taking place in parts of Africa and other regions, particularly Asia, could see similar trends in the next few years as HIV/Aids seeps into huge populations there.

"Even slight upward trends in prevalence in countries like China, India and even Indonesia could lead to many more orphans," Bellamy said.

The number of Aids orphans worldwide shot up from 11.5 million in 2001 to 15 million in 2003, she said.

"The worst may still be ahead of us," she said. "Far too many will die."

Twenty-eight percent of all orphans in sub-Saharan Africa are due to Aids. That figure includes 78 percent in Zimbabwe, 60 percent in Zambia, and 26 percent in Nigeria.

Nigeria, the most populous African country, alone has 1.8 million Aids orphans.

In the region's 11 worst-hit countries, one in seven children are orphans, and in five of those countries Aids is the cause of parental death more than 50 percent of the time, the report said.

Orphaned children, Bellamy said, face the "onerous burden" of Aids as they still suffer stigma and discrimination and are easy targets for violence and abuse.

Bellamy was joined in releasing the report by Kami, a talking puppet created by the Sesame Street Muppets in the United States.

Depicted as a five-year-old HIV-positive African girl, whose parents died of Aids, Kami was introduced to raise awareness of Aids issues among children.

Anne Peterson, USAID's assistant administrator for global health, warned that Aids orphans are not receiving the attention and treatment that would help them cope.

"Global efforts are only reaching a small fraction of those in need," she said.

By the end of 2003, only 17 countries with generalised Aids epidemics reported having a national policy for orphans and vulnerable children, Peterson said.

- AFP