Only 5 per cent of the global HIV/Aids budget is allocated to children even though the disease is having a devastating effect by orphaning millions of children worldwide according to Unicef.
President McAleese
Speaking at the Unicef Annual Meeting, held in Dublin for the first time, the President Mrs McAleese called Aids a "disease, not a disgrace" and she highlighted the need for frank and honest discussions about the disease at every level of society.
"In every community and in every family, candid conversation about Aids, its causes and its consequences is a help in creating the bulwark of personal behaviour which can help stop the disease in its track," she said.
Mrs McAleese said the disease is destroying development gains and threatened the future of many countries worldwide, particularly those in sub-Saharan Africa. "What ebbs away is a nation's very life source - it's people, it's future," she said.
According to Unicef, in the time it took Mrs McAleese to deliver her speech another 12 people had died from Aids and 20 children became infected.
"The shocking reality of this disease is that 14 million children have already been orphaned by AIDS and in six years time, we will have 25 million children growing up alone having lost their parents to the disease" said Ms Carol Bellamy, the executive director of Unicef
"The challenge that Unicef now faces along with our international partners and national governments is the comprehensive, massive scaling-up of successful interventions and initiatives for protecting and supporting children orphaned by Aids" Ms Bellamy added.
According to Ms Maura Quinn, executive director of Unicef Ireland, "the biggest challenge of all remains funding. Children must be the priority when dealing with this issue and wealthy nations have a fundamental role in stepping up the response to HIV/Aids — especially the orphan crisis" she concluded.