Some 250,000 Ethiopian children aged under five are HIV-positive, the country's health ministry said today.
It called for further AIDS-prevention measures on national radio.
The risk of transmitting HIV/AIDS is particularly high in two instances, an official in the ministry's disease control and prevention department said: the passing of the AIDS virus from mothers to children and precocious sexual relations without precautions.
A UNICEF official co-ordinating anti-AIDS projects in Addis Ababa today confirmed the official figures but said they were "estimates". UNICEF estimates 750,000 children in the east African country have been orphaned by AIDS.
The Ethiopian government plans to train health professionals in fighting the spread of AIDS, an official at the health ministry said.
The ministry and UNICEF are organising a seminar for midwives and gynaecologists about caring for pregnant woman who have HIV.
In January this year, an Ethiopian study jointly conducted with Washington aid agency USAID warned AIDS could kill more than 5.2 million Ethiopians in the next 14 years if officials failed to take steps to halt the "alarming" spread of the pandemic in the country.
Three million Ethiopians are HIV-positive out of a population of 62.8 million, according to World Bank figures. The specialised agency of the United Nations, UNAIDS, put the infection rate among adults at 10.63 per cent in 2000.
AFP