10 Million AIDS Orphans Forecast

GENEVA — Deaths from AIDS will cause nearly 10 million African children to be orphaned this decade, the World Health Organization forecast Thursday.

Michael Merson, director of the U.N. agency’s Global Program on AIDS, said an estimated one in 40 women in sub-Saharan Africa carries the HIV virus that causes the fatal disease. He said that about one in three children receive the virus from their mothers and those spared the disease face life alone if their parents die.