World Aids Day on Tuesday - a day set aside every year for raising awareness about the disease - is focusing on young people who make up half of all new HIV cases.

At least eight million children around the world have been orphaned because of Aids.

President Bill Clinton said that the grants for orphaned children, although small, would make a huge difference by giving orphaned children a place to live, food to eat or a chance to go to school.

"We cannot forget our profound obligation to the heartbreaking youngest victims of the disease, the orphaned children left in its wake," said President Clinton.

"We cannot restore to them all they have lost, but we can give them a future."

The US Government also pledged a 30% increase in funding to the National Institutes of Health for research on HIV prevention and treatment around the world.

No support

Aid agencies claim the plight of many of the millions of children affected by HIV is being ignored.

Half-a-million babies were born with HIV last year and half of the six million new HIV cases last year were in people under 24 years old, according to UNAIDS, the United Nations Aids agency.

Save the Children Fund (SCF) and Unicef say young people are not being given the support or services they need.

Children in developing countries are hit hardest

Lyn Elliott, SCF's HIV/Aids policy adviser, said those from poor countries who were on the margins of society - including refugees, the sexually abused and exploited - were the most at risk and most likely to be deprived access to health services.

"The children's choices are limited to start with so they end up doing things that make them more at risk of HIV infection," she said.

Children's rights

Carol Bellamy, executive director of Unicef, said governments needed to take immediate action to help children affected by HIV.

This would include information and support, but also a change in the legal, economic and social circumstances of the most marginalised children so they had more options available to them.

Aids orphans need more support, say aid agencies

Ms Bellamy said Aids was wiping out substantial reductions in infant mortality in some developing countries.

"At a time when rich countries have made substantial progress in controlling the virus, the unfolding catastrophe of HIV/Aids in the developing world is a measure of how profoundly the human rights of children and young people in those countries are being violated," she said.

Asian crisis

Meanwhile, UNAids has warned that Asia - particularly the south and southeast - is likely to become the next epicentre of the disease.

Seven million Asians are already infected with HIV - a low number compared with sub-Saharan Africa - but the epidemic started later there and is growing fast, say health officials.

China and India, because of their size, are thought to be most at risk. Already up to 400,000 Chinese are estimated to be HIV positive.