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AIDS is leaving a generation of orphans
Experts say 28 million will be orphaned in next decade
NAIROBI, Kenya (CNN) -- Children at Nyumbani Orphanage are the lucky ones. Left parentless by AIDS, many suffer from the disease themselves. But for them, the Swahili word "nyumbani" (home) rings true. "Many of them come as abandoned infants in hospitals," said the Rev. Angelo D'Agostino, a Jesuit priest who founded Nyumbani in 1992. "So many have never had a mother ... and don't know a mother or never had a home." In the beginning, Nyumbani cared for three children in a small rented house. Now the orphanage houses 70 children in 10 family-style units, each with an assigned house mother. For many here, it is the only family they know.
"When the parents die, the relatives don't want them around," said D'Agostino, a former Washington, D.C., resident who also is a trained psychiatrist. He calls Nyumbani "the most rewarding work I've done in either medicine or priesthood." A worsening crisisAccording to the U.S. Agency for International Development, the problem will only grow. There are now 16 million African children who have lost at least one parent to AIDS, the agency says in its report, "Children on the Brink 2000." In the next 10 years, that number is expected to reach 28 million. Some 90 percent of those children live in sub-Saharan Africa, but a generation of orphans is growing throughout the developing world. By 2010, authorities estimate that one in three children in Namibia, Swaziland, Zimbabwe and South Africa will have lost a parent to AIDS. And most of those born with AIDS will die before they are 5 years old. The numbers alone, presented at the 13th International AIDS Conference under way in Durban, South Africa, are staggering. But an even more compelling message comes from one of those most affected by the crisis. "I'm actually an orphan and I'm infected," said 11-year-old Nkosi Johnson. "I am a very lucky little boy, and I am living with a foster family. But I am strong and healthy. That's just what I want all the orphans to have." Orphanages in South Africa struggle to provide for a handful of AIDS orphans -- a fraction of the hundreds of thousands in the country. Such a vast population of AIDS orphans will have an impact on the region's educational and social fabric that is incalculable, experts say. Even higher will be the emotional and psychological cost, due to reverberate for years to come. "The potential for social unrest, social instability is pretty significant," said John Williamson, the report's co-author. "You have a very substantial proportion of your population that has been undereducated, malnourished, marginalized, is disaffected, not able to go to school." More needs to be done to help families and communities support orphaned children, Williamson and others said. South Africa has high unemployment, added Grace Mnugi of the AFXB Foundation. "If I want to take care of a child, the first question I'm going to ask myself is how am I going to clothe that child, how am I going to feed that child," she said. Grim prospects for most childrenVolunteers such as D'Agostino see some hope in U.S. President Bill Clinton's pledge not to prosecute the makers or buyers of generic AIDS drugs for use in Africa on intellectual property grounds. But they say drug companies can do even more to directly lower the cost of anti-retroviral medications. "It makes me furious and ashamed to be an American, really, to know that this is mainly American companies that are so greedy that they're withholding the medicine they could bring on to prolong these children's lives," said the priest. By their ninth month, three out of four HIV-positive babies lose their mothers' antibodies and become HIV-negative. Some of them are adopted. But others who remain infected are doomed to premature death. Rose Gacheri lived at Nyumbani for just two years before she died of AIDS at age 9. Before that, she spent three years in a juvenile detention center after being found abandoned on the streets at the age of 4. The 17th grave in Nyumbani's small cemetery belongs to Rose. Children there put flowers -- red roses, for her name -- on the freshly turned earth. It is a ritual that is part of the rhythm of life at Nyumbani. D'Agostino continues to pray for a cure. And until there is one, he will do what he can, one orphan at a time. RELATEDS AT  :
AIDS strategies fall short, experts sayRELATED STORIES: Studies show progress in 'stop and start' AIDS treatment RELATED SITES: Nyumbani: An Orphanage and Community Hospice for HIV + Infants and Children throughout Africa | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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