AIDS kills a Zimbabwean child every 15 minutes and global donors should open their purses to fight the epidemic there with the same intensity they have fought for democracy, UNICEF said on Thursday.

Carol Bellamy, on her last trip to Africa as executive director of the U.N. Children’s Fund, told a news conference Zimbabwe received only a fraction of funding compared to other countries in the region despite suffering one of the world’s highest rates of HIV/AIDS and a surge in child mortality.

“The world must differentiate between the politics and people of Zimbabwe,” Bellamy said.

“The global generosity toward tsunami victims was inspiring, but it has dried up for Zimbabwean children who are facing a deadly crisis every day of their lives.”

Zimbabwe has faced economic and political problems over the past five years sparked by President Robert Mugabe’s campaign to redistribute white-owned farms to landless blacks.

The country will hold parliamentary elections on March 31.

The numbers unveiled by UNICEF are chilling.

“The under-5 mortality rate has risen 50 percent since 1990 (now 1 death in every 8 births) ... 1 in 5 Zimbabwean children are now orphans; a child dies every 15 minutes due to HIV/AIDS in Zimbabwe; and 160,000 children will experience the death of a parent in 2005,” UNICEF said in a statement.

UNICEF said that in 2004 to 2005, Zimbabwe received no HIV/AIDS funding support from key global donors in the region, including the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS relief and the World Bank’s Multi-Country HIV/AIDS Programme for Africa.

It also received limited funding from the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, UNICEF added.

The average annual donor spending per HIV-infected person in southern Africa from the three agencies stood at $74 but that figure shrunk to just $4 for Zimbabwe, UNICEF said.

In Zambia, which has a slightly lower HIV rate than Zimbabwe, donors gave $187 per HIV-positive person. That figure rose to $319 in Uganda and $802 for the Red Sea nation of Eritrea, UNICEF added.

“Overall donor support for Zimbabwe is also far lower than any other country in the region,” UNICEF said.

But Zimbabwe was making progress in fighting HIV/AIDS and child mortality despite the dearth in funds, UNICEF said, adding the agency was providing counselling and psychological support to 100,000 orphaned children and its supplementary feeding program reached 750,000 children under the age of 5.