In the past two decades, at least 13 million people younger than 15 worldwide have lost one or both parents to the AIDS disease, according to a new report from the Save the Children fund.
“This figure underestimates the true scale of the problem,” conceded the report, at the Sixth International Congress on AIDS in Asia and the Pacific.
In south and southeast Asia, AIDS has killed one or both parents of 3 million to 4 million children younger than 18 years old, estimated Douglas Webb, HIV adviser for the children’s charity. The region is home to about 210,000 of the world’s 1.4 million people younger than 15 who live with HIV/AIDS. About 36.1 million people worldwide live with HIV/AIDS. In Asia – where more children of HIV/AIDS-infected mothers survive because of medical advances that prevent mother-to-child transmission of the disease –“We are likely to see a disproportionate rise in the number of orphans in this region compared to sub-Saharan Africa,” Webb noted. “What we are going to see is more children growing up in the absence of their mothers,” he added. “We haven’t prepared for this. These points are not being raised and it worries me.”
Often spurned by their communities, many AIDS orphans face sub-standard institutional care or must contend with homelessness and sexual exploitation, the report concluded.
(RNS)
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