Aids plays havoc with Africa's children

HIV/Aids has reached "catastrophic" proportions and is unravelling decades of gains in child survival and development, especially in sub-Saharan Africa, the UN secretary general, Kofi Annan, warns in a new report. The social profile of the Aids pandemic has been gradually shifting, the report warns, with the disease increasingly affecting the young, poor and illiterate. Above all, its victims are adolescent girls.