Bucharest - Romania, with nearly 9,000 children infected with the HIV virus, accounts for more than half of Europe's juvenile AIDS cases, a senior official said yesterday.
Ms Mariana Mardarescu, vice-president of Romania's national AIDS commission, said the country had a total of 10,475 AIDS cases in a population of 22.5 million, an overall rate putting it among Europe's lowest.
"But the situation of juvenile AIDS continues to be disastrous," Ms Mardarescu said. In 1999, a total of 210 children born in 1988 and 1989 were diagnosed with AIDS.