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The HIV/AIDS epidemic is likely to rob as many as 20 million children of their parents by 2010, a new World Bank report has found.
According to the report, 'Reaching Out to Africa's Orphans', caring for the rising numbers of AIDS orphans in Africa imposed a heavy financial burden on children, households and communities.
The study found that every child a household fostered in Uganda, for example, cut household savings by 25 percent. Two million orphans were being fostered by one-third of all households in the country, and the economic and social impact across Uganda had been dramatic.
In countries such as Swaziland, Botswana and Zambia, close to 20 percent of all children under 18 years of age were now orphans, the report noted.
The World Bank called for existing programmes and projects targeting orphans to be scaled up to reach more children.
This article was produced by IRIN News while it was part of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Please send queries on copyright or liability to the UN. For more information: https://shop.un.org/rights-permissions