
South Africa is currently experiencing one of the most severe AIDS epidemics in the world. By the end of 2005, there were 5.5 million people living with HIV in South Africa.
UNAIDS estimated that there were 1.2 million South African children orphaned by AIDS in 2005.
Children are more at risk in some places than in others. In South Africa, for example, there is a myth that sex with a virgin can "cure" a man of HIV, thus leading to a large number of rapes of very young children by men infected with HIV.
Many women who are HIV-positive still not receiving drugs that could prevent passing HIV to their babies, HIV infections are alarmingly common amongst children in South Africa. In 2006, according to government antenatal surveys, there were around 260,000 children aged below 15 living with HIV in South Africa.