Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 1999. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
The Associated Press - Wednesday, August 11, 1999
"Over the next year as many as 1,700 Cambodian children will die from the virus," says Dr Tia Phalla, the Ministry of Health's national manager for its Aids programme.
He says the number of orphans under 15 infected with the virus is expected to reach more than 12,000 next year.
Outside one orphanage in the capital, Saroeun Thuong squats in a patch of shade cradling her daughter, a sickly seven-month-old probably ill with Aids. "I have not named her yet because she is so sick," Ms Thuong says. She has come 40km from her village to the Phnom Penh Nutrition Centre to abandon her baby.
A nurse spots Ms Thuong before she can leave the child.
"I was told that I could hand over my baby to the doctors here. I don't have any money to feed my baby and my other child," Ms Thuong tells her. The nurse listens, but tells the young mother to leave. The child is too ill for the orphanage to accept, she says.
Ms Thuong gathers herself and the baby and disappears.
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