Orphans due to Aids Re-visited: The challenge for Brazil continues

The Aids orphans crisis constitutes one of the greatest human challenges of the global community; for Brazil the estimate is 200.000 orphans in 2010. In Santos, city known by the Aids high prevalence, researchers worried about orphanhood carried out the first national study for estimate total paternal and maternal Aids orphans, aged less than 15 years, in the period 1995-2001. The present work improves the Aids orphans estimation methodology, validated in the previous study, updating the informations and incorporating the knowledge of the international and national epidemic trends. Applying demographic techniques, Aids orphans estimate was updated to 2012 and the age increased up to 18 years, following international recommendations about the Aids orphans vulnerability, not barely to 15 years. The new epidemic tendencies, maternal transmission decline, survival increase by the use of antirretroviral therapy and the growing exercise of the reproductive right to maternity of seropositive women were also incorporated.