Worldwide 42 million people are estimated to be living with HIV/AIDS. Of these, 38.6 million are adults. 19.2 million are women, and 3.2 million are children under 15.

An estimated 5 million people acquired the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) in 2002, including 2 million women and 800,000 children under 15. During 2002, AIDS caused the deaths of an estimated 3.1 million people, including 1.2 million women and 610,000 children under 15.

There are currently about 15 million AIDS orphans in Sub-Sahara Africa. By 2010 that number will rise to 20 million.

While only 10% of the world’s population lives in Africa, the continent has 90% of the world’s HIV-infected children.

In Sub Sahara Africa 470,000 children die from AIDS every year, the vast majority receiving the virus from their mother, either at birth or from breast-feeding. Most HIV-infected children die before their 5 th birthday.

Girls are three to seven times more likely to be infected with HIV than boys.

AIDS orphans are less likely to attend school than other children. They frequently do not have access to adequate medical care. They are more likely to live in poverty and to be malnourished.

"AIDS in Africa touches children in two ways—as a disease that kills their parents, leaving them orphans, and as a disease that infects [the] children themselves….AIDS orphans suffer on many levels. They may need to drop out of school to care for a dying parent or….for younger siblings. They are likely to have been exposed to tuberculosis and other opportunistic infections plaguing an HIV-positive adult. They may be sent to live with relatives, all too often a grandparent already [caring] for grandchildren from three or four families….[They may] have no choice but to form child-headed households in which older children raise their younger brothers and sisters. Child-headed households are among the most economically vulnerable in Africa."
--- Joyce Maxwell, AIDS Stalks Africa’s Children, CNN.com

Sources: Centers for Disease Control, UNAIDS, and CNN.com

This page originally appeared in the Spring 2003 StreetChild newsletter.