An AIDS orphan is a child who became an orphan because one or both parents died from AIDS.

In statistics from the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), the World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), the term is used for a child whose mother has died due to AIDS before the child's 15th birthday, regardless of whether the father is still alive. As a result of this definition, one study estimated that 80% of all AIDS orphans still have one living parent.

There are 70,000 new AIDS orphans a year. By the year 2010, it is estimated that over 20 million children will be orphaned by AIDS.

Because AIDS affects mainly those who are sexually active, AIDS-related deaths are often people who are their family's primary wage earners. The resulting AIDS orphans frequently depend on the state for care and financial support, particularly in Africa.

The highest number of orphans due to AIDS alive in 2007 was in South Africa (although the definition of AIDS orphan in South African statistics includes children up to the age of 18 who have lost either biological parent). In 2005 the highest number of AIDS orphans as a percentage of all orphans was in Zimbabwe.

Dr Patrick Dixon is an author and business consultant, often described as a futurist. In 2005 he was ranked as one of the 20 most influential business thinkers alive according to the Thinkers 50 (a private survey printed in The Times). He is Chairman of the trends forecasting company Global Change Ltd, founder of the international AIDS agency ACET, and Chairman of the ACET International Alliance.

Dixon was included in the Independent on Sunday's 2010 "Happy List", with reference to ACET and his other work tackling the stigma of AIDS.

Patrick Dixon studied Medical Sciences at King's College, Cambridge and continued medical training at Charing Cross Hospital, London. In 1978, while a medical student, he founded the IT startup Medicom, selling medical software solutions in the UK and the Middle East, based on early personal computers. After qualifying as a physician he cared for people dying of cancer at St Joseph's Hospice and then as part of the Community Care Team based at University College Hospital, London, while also continuing IT consulting part-time.