Aids orphans 'next challenge'

2006-08-14 19:51

Johannesburg - More than 15 million children in sub-Saharan Africa will have lost one or both parents to HIV/Aids by 2010, straining social safety networks as poor countries battle the epidemic, said a report on Monday.

The report by the UN Children's Fund (Unicef), UNAids and the U.S. President's Emergency Plan for Aids Relief (Pepfar) said Africa's Aids crisis was increasingly taking a toll on the younger generation.

Unicef deputy executive director Rima Salah said: "Millions of children affected by Aids are out of school, growing up alone, vulnerable to poverty, marginalisation and discrimination.

"Children who have lost parents and care-givers are left without their first line of defence."

The report said children often were disproportionately affected by HIV/Aids, which not only robbed them of parents, but also of education and health care as doctors, nurses and teachers succumbed to the epidemic.

AIDS is responsible for about 12 million of the 48 million children who have lost one or both parents in sub-Saharan Africa.

In Zambia, with a population of about 10 million, there are an estimated one million children needing additional care.

The report said the rising numbers of children losing parents to HIV/Aids was making it hard for surviving parents or extended families to step in with assistance, requiring greater help from the international community.

Kent Hill, assistant administrator of the bureau for global health at USAid, the American aid agency, said: "By strengthening critical programmes at the local level, the international community can ensure that orphaned and vulnerable children receive the care, support and protection they need."

Children affected by Aids are at higher risk of missing school, nutritional problems and anxiety, said the report.

It added that they also were at a higher risk of HIV infection, with girls and young women aged 15-24 being particularly vulnerable.

The report said that even in countries where the HIV/Aids pandemic appeared to be stabilising or on the decline, the number of orphans would continue to grow, or at least remain high, due to the time lag between HIV infection and death.

The growing extent of Africa's Aids orphan crisis required new interventions at the local, national and international level, said the report.

Basic steps that will help

Prolonging the lives of parents, through the provision of Aids treatments such as antiretroviral drugs, would be one key step toward improving the situation.

Other basic steps involved eliminating school fees, which might keep Aids orphans in class and improve their future prospects.

An important task was strengthening community organisations to help care for children and fight the stigma of HIV/Aids, that pushed many affected children to the margins of society at the moment of their greatest need.

- Reuters