ADDIS ABABA, Oct 2 (AFP) - Some 250,000 Ethiopian children aged under five are HIV-positive, the health ministry stated Tuesday, calling for further AIDS prevention measures on national radio as it released the figures.
The risk of transmitting HIV/AIDS is particularly high in two instances, an official in the ministry's disease control and prevention department said: the passing of the AIDS virus from mothers to children and precocious sexual relations without precautions.
A UNICEF official coordinating anti-AIDS projects in Addis Ababa on Tuesday confirmed the official figures but told AFP that they were "estimates".
The UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) estimates that 750,000 children in the east African country have been made orphans by AIDS.
The government plans to train health professionals in methods of fighting the spread of AIDS, Alemayehu Seifu, an official on attachment to the health ministry said.
The ministry and UNICEF are organising a seminar for several dozen midwives and gynaecologists about caring for pregnant woman who have HIV.
In January this year, an Ethiopian study jointly conducted with Washington's aid agency USAID warned that AIDS could kill more than 5.2 million Ethiopians in the next 14 years if officials failed to take steps to halt the "alarming" spread of the pandemic in the country.
Three million Ethiopians are HIV-positive out of a population of 62.8 million, according to World Bank figures. The specialised agency of the United Nations, UNAIDS, put the infection rate among adults at 10.63 percent in 2000.
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