HIV/AIDS growing in Mozambique

The spread of HIV/AIDS is growing so rapidly in Mozambique that at least one million children are expected to be orphaned
by the disease in the next five years.

Ian MacLeod, a spokesman for UNICEF, told IRIN on Tuesday that an estimated 350,000 Mozambican children have already been orphaned by the disease, and that although the country could not build orphanages for them, they should not be abandoned by their communities.

He said UNICEF was spending US $3 million alone in Mozambique to combat HIV/AIDS which was mainly prevalent in the central and northern provinces of Manica, Sofala, Tete and Zambezia.

"The whole of Mozambique has been drastically affected by HIV/AIDS with the central provinces being the worst affected," he said. "HIV/AIDS is the priority amongst priorities right now in Mozambique."

He said at least one in four adults in the four provinces were HIV-positive. According to government figures for last year, about 15 percent of the Mozambican population of 17 million people were HIV-positive with an average of 700 people getting infected daily.

In a related development, France last week granted the Mozambique government just over US 1 million to help tackle the HIV/AIDS crisis.