1.1 million HIV/AIDS orphans in Kenya

The official figure for numbers of HIV/AIDS orphans in Kenya is now 1.1 million, Kenneth Chebet, the head of the National AIDS Control Council told IRIN on Wednesday. The figure had been arrived at by the Ministry for Health, NGOs and the Bureau of Statistics, he said.

Speaking about the high numbers, Kenyan Health Minister Sam Ongeri said on Tuesday that the figure could triple "if further preventive measure are not emphasised," the East African Standard reported.

Chebet said between 40 and 50 percent of Kenya's hospital beds, excluding those in maternity wards, were currently occupied by patients with HIV/AIDS-related illnesses.

In 2001, a report by Human Rights Watch (HRW) accused the Kenyan government of failing to take responsibility for the estimated million children who had been orphaned by the virus. "The rights of children have been the missing piece of the AIDS crisis," said Joanne Csete, a researcher with the rights advocacy group.

"If their parents had died in any other way, these children would have been at the top of the agenda. But because the parents died of AIDS, with all of the stigma that implies, they're at the bottom."

HRW reported that many such orphans - unable to inherit property to which they were entitled due to cumbersome legal processes - were being forced to leave school early to become breadwinners, and subsequently exploited by having to engage in potentially dangerous labour inappropriate to their age.

[This item is delivered to the English Service of the UN's IRIN humanitarian information unit, but may not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations.]