Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 1997. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.

Reuters NewMedia, Inc. - Wednesday November 19, 11:20 pm Eastern Time
Maggie Fox, Health and Science Correspondent

A survey by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and the Census Bureau predicted the AIDS epidemic would create a lost generation of children at risk of exploitation and disease.

"More than 40 million children in 23 developing nations will likely have lost one or both their parents by 2010. Most of these deaths will be the result of the HIV/AIDS pandemic and complicated illnesses," Brian Atwood, administrator of USAID, said in a statement.

"In countries across Africa, Asia and Latin America, HIV/AIDS is unraveling years of progress in economic and social development," he said.

"Life expectancy -- which has been steadily on the rise for the last three decades -- will drop to 40 years or less in nine sub-Saharan countries by the year 2010."

Atwood said serious work to help stop infants from dying in developing countries was being negated.

"In all 23 countries included in this study, AIDS-related mortality will eliminate the gains made in child survival over the past 20 years. In Zambia and Zimbabwe, infant mortality rates will likely nearly double, and child mortality rates will triple," he said.

Children who lose one or both parents will lack protection, love and care, USAID warned. "Many of these children will increasingly be forced into child labor and will suffer higher rates of disease and death," the agency said in a statement.

Dr. Nils Daulaire, a senior adviser to Atwood, said the orphans could strike back at the society that neglected them.

"A deeply troubling consequence may also be the growth of the phenomenon we have seen in recent years ... ragtag armies of child combatants, unfettered by social concepts of what is considered acceptable behavior in war, wreaking death, destruction and crimes against humanity across a ravaged landscape," he told a news conference.

The report called for a package of actions to prevent the worst consequences, starting at the local level and working up to changes in national laws.

"Action is needed to empower women and maximize their access to economic resources," a summary of the report, which is to be issued in December, said.

"Reducing 'property grabbing' by protecting women's and children's property and inheritance rights is vital," it said. Communities should also be encouraged to help and protect victims, rather than stigmatizing them, it recommended.

"National governments have the ultimate responsibility of ensuring that children are protected and cared for if they are on their own or if those with whom they live are unable to adequately care for them," the report said.

Daulaire said the changes urged by the report were badly needed in many countries anyway, but AIDS made the problems particularly pressing. "We see this as a particular crisis," he said. "It's an issue that has to be addressed here and now."

"This report is a call to arms for developing and developed nations alike," Atwood concluded. "The human and social costs of these numbers are staggering. We cannot begin the 21st century with a generation of children lost to abandonment, despair and hopelessness."

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