India has highest number of AIDS orphans

[Guest guest]

India has highest number of AIDS orphans:

A situation that the Indian government seems keen to cover up.

At the International Conference in Barcelona " Children on the Brink 2002 " was

released. This joint publication by UNAIDS/UNICEF/USAID includes global

estimates for children orphaned by HIV/AIDS. Many of you may be taken by

surprise to learn that India now has more orphans caused by HIV/AIDS than any

other country in the world.

A first glance at the tables included in this booklet will not tell you this

straight away. The official statement from the joint team is that the data was

not available. I was given some inside information however that it was the

Indian government that refused to allow this data to be published. It is

certainly not

true that data was not available - the totals are included, so all you have to

do is subtract the total for other countries from the total given to fill in the

balnk for India.

The result of this exercise is staggering. India currently has 1,262,600 (12.6

Lakhs)children orphaned by AIDS. This will double in just a few years, will

reach 27 Lakhs by the end of the decade, and continue to rise beyond that.

A situation that the Indian government seems keen to cover up.

If anyone wants a copy of " Children on the Brink " it can be downloaded from

www.synergyaids.com Don't be put off by the blanks for India - just add up

the rest of Asia, take this away from the total at the bottom of the page -

that's the Indian total.

Neil

Neil Monk

E-mail: <nmonkuk@...>

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