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Zambia, in southern Africa, has one of the world's most devastating HIV and AIDS epidemics. One in every six adults in Zambia is living with HIV and life expectancy at birth has fallen below 40 years.
Unlike women in other regions of the world, African women are 1.2 times more likely to acquire HIV than men. Among young people ages 15-24, this ratio is the highest.
HIV has spread throughout Zambia and to all parts of society. However, some groups are especially vulnerable - most notably young women and girls. At the end of 2006, UNAIDS/WHO estimates that 17% of people aged 15-49 years old were living with HIV or AIDS. Of these million adults, 57% were women. AIDS has worst hit those in their most productive years, and, as families have disintegrated, thousands have been left destitute.
Children have been much affected by the AIDS epidemic in Zambia. In 2005 there were 710,000 AIDS orphans in the country. Thousands of these children are abandoned due to stigma or to simple lack of resources, while others run away because they have been mistreated and abused by foster families.