PARIS, Sept 17 (AFP) - Following are facts on the AIDS pandemic in Africa:

PEOPLE LIVING WITH HIV/AIDS IN 2002

• Global total: 42 million
• In sub-Saharan Africa: 29.4 million, of whom 10 million are aged 15-24 and nearly three million are under 15

NEW HIV INFECTIONS

• Global total: Five million in 2002
• In sub-Saharan Africa: 3.5 million

AIDS DEATHS

• Global total: 3.1 million in 2002
• In sub-Saharan Africa: 2.4 million

PREVALENCE

• Nine percent of African adults have HIV or AIDS.
• The four countries with the lowest adult infection rate: Mauritius (0.1 percent), Madagascar (0.3 percent), Senegal (0.5 percent), Somalia (1.0 percent)
• The four highest: Botswana (38.8 percent), Zimbabwe (33.7 percent), Swaziland (33.4 percent), Lesotho (31 percent)

ORPHANS

Eleven million African children have been orphaned by AIDS, a term defined as losing one or both parents to the disease. The total is expected to rise to 20 million by 2010, accounting for six percent of all of the continent's children.

ECONOMIC IMPACT

Conventional estimates say the AIDS epidemic clips between 0.3 and 1.5 percent of the annual growth in gross domestic product (GDP) of African countries. But these calculations are increasingly under attack as serious underestimates and too short term, failing to factor in the narrowing of the tax base, long-term loss of entrepreneurial skills and transfer of human knowledge.

(Sources: Joint UN Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) report of July 2002; UNAIDS/World Health Organisation (WHO) report of November 2002; UNAIDS/Unicef/USAIDS report on orphans of July 2002; "The Long-run Economic Costs of AIDS: Theory and an Application to South Africa," a July 2003 World Bank study).

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