UNICEF has called on the Irish Government to use its influence during Ireland's presidency of the EU to highlight the plight of millions of children in Africa who have been orphaned because of AIDS.
At a conference in Dublin this afternoon the UNICEF Global Chief for HIV/AIDS, Peter McDermott, said the problem has been hugely underestimated.
He said there are currently 11 million children in sub-Saharan Africa who have been orphaned by the virus, and that that figure will more than double to 25 million by 2010.
Mr McDermott said that even if a cure for AIDS were found today the number of orphans will continue to increase, and that for up to 12 countries in the region the numbers will not peak for another decade. ‘The worst is yet to come’, he said.
Mr McDermott commended the Irish Government for its ten-fold increase in funding on the issue in the last three years to an annual excess of €40 million.
But he said UNICEF needs to raise €100 million as a matter of urgency to tackle the problem, and he urged the Irish Government, which he said was one of the more progressive on this issue, to use its voice in the EU to influence other countries.
Crisis of 'mammoth proportions'
With the Irish Government hosting a major meeting during the EU Presidency on HIV/AIDS next month, UNICEF Ireland has launched a report which warns that this is only the beginning of a crisis of ‘mammoth proportions’.
The Executive Director of UNICEF Ireland, Maura Quinn, who has just returned from Swaziland, said the reality for children there is ‘unbelievably shocking’.
She said it is not uncommon for grandmothers to be looking after up to 20 children without state assistance.
The South African Ambassador to Ireland, Melanie Verwoerd, who launched the report, said that there is a danger that those living with and affected by HIV/AIDS are reduced to statistics.
She said the AIDS epidemic is a real human tragedy which affects millions of real men, women and, increasingly, children.
Quoting Nelson Mandela, who wrote the forward to the report, Ms Verwoerd said that the AIDS crisis can be tackled but that the global community needs to respond to this issue with greater zeal.
