African children lose an average of half a year of school in areas where more than 10 percent of a community is living with HIV/AIDS, said Robert Greener, a senior economic advisor for the United Nations agency UNAIDS, in an Inter-Press Service news agency report (ipsnews.net 6/11).

According to Greener, HIV/AIDS hampers “knowledge and skills transmission from one generation to the next which, over time, results in the loss of human capital.”

Greener also believes that the HIV/AIDS epidemic has an impact on economic growth, saying “economies need educated and skilled people.”