A devastating 10.4 million children throughout the world were recorded last year as suffering from AIDS. The figure could double by 2010, according to the UN children's rights organisation, UNICEF.
As many as 2.3 million people under the age of 15 lost either their mother or both parents to AIDS in 2000, UNICEF said following the publication of statistics this week.
The majority of children orphaned by the pandemic live in sub-Saharan Africa. At the end of 1999, around 970,000 AIDS orphans were recorded in Nigeria; 900,000 in Ethiopia and 623,000 in Zimbabwe.
Statistics showed a further 447,000 children in Zambia lost their parents to AIDS in 1999, while 371,000 in South Africa were in a similar position, UNICEF added.
According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), there are currently around 40 million AIDS sufferers worldwide, the vast majority of them in sub-Saharan Africa.
Five million people contracted the disease in 2001, a year which also saw the death of three million people from AIDS.
AFP