JOHANNESBURG, Nov 28 (AFP) - The AIDS situation in Africa is "catastrophic", the UN AIDS agency warned Tuesday, presenting figures showing that sub-Saharan Africa accounts for 70 percent of the world's cases.

In Botswana, the worst affected country, more than one in three adults -- 36 percent -- are suffering from HIV or AIDS.

The figures, presented simultaneously in Berlin and Johannesburg, show that 25.3 million Africans south of the Sahara were HIV-positive or suffering from full-blown AIDS in 2000 -- nearly a million more than in 1999.

"The AIDS situation in Africa is catastrophic," said UNAIDS executive director Peter Piot, speaking in Berlin.

He said sub-Saharan Africa continued to be the world's most-affected region, and that the epidemic was "bound to get worse before it gets better."

The UNAIDS report notes that 30 percent of those who are 15 years old today in eight sub-Saharan African countries are expected to fall victim to AIDS.

It adds that an apparent stabilisation of the epidemic in Africa -- 3.8 million new infections in 2000 compared with four million in 1999 -- may be due simply to the fact that there are fewer people left to infect.

The report also stresses the sharp economic and social effect and potential future damage of the AIDS epidemic in Africa through its decimation of working populations.

Piot said 860,000 young children had lost their teachers through AIDS.

Eastern and Southern Africa alone had almost 50 percent of all people living with HIV and AIDS, said Jesper Morch, chairman of the UN theme group on HIV/AIDS in South Africa, in Johannesburg.

"Our little corner of the world has ... 61 percent of all children living with HIV/AIDSm 80 percent of the people who have died from AIDS-related causesm and 70 percent of the children who have been orphaned by AIDS," he said.

Morch said some 2.2 million Africans had died from AIDS-related causes in 1999, compared with some 200,000 who died in armed conflicts.

This year an estimated 2.4 million people died from HIV/AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa.

Wayne Nyslik of the independent consultancy Lifeworks said that although the pandemic had stabilised in such countries as Uganda and Senegal, it was continuing to worsen in South Africa.

The world's largest number of cases, 4.2 million people are there, nearly a fifth of the adult population.

An estimated one in four South African women between 20 and 29 is infected with the virus.

"South Africa is considered to have one of the world's fastest growing epidemics and the highest number of people living with HIV/AIDS," said Morch.

One out of two South Africans under 20 may die from HIV-related causes before they are 35, according to estimates by local non-governmental organisations.

"This is not the time for complacency. We have reached a stage of the epidemic where many more people infected years ago are starting to become sick and to die," Morch warned.

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