Tutu advocates for HIV positive children

Holding up a t-shirt proclaiming, "HIV Positive Kids Need Treatment", Archbishop Emeritus of Cape Town, Desmond Tutu highlighted the need to address the challenges faced in relation to HIV positive children in his speech to the 61st World Health Assembly on Tuesday.

"Children are dying of easily preventable diseases", he stated.

Almost 800 children die of Aids-related illnesses every day. According to the latest figures from UNAIDS, approximately 2.1 million children under 15 are living with HIV, nearly 90 per cent of them in sub-Saharan Africa.

The lack of accurate diagnostic tests for infants, affordable child-friendly medicines, and the capacity of health systems to test and treat children, has meant that nearly a third of HIV-positive infants die by their first birthday, and half of all children born with HIV die before they are two years old, warned the Ecumenical Advocacy Alliance.

In low and middle income countries, only 30 per cent of adults in need of HIV treatment are receiving it. Yet the figures for children are even worse. Worldwide only 15 per cent of children in need of treatment are receiving it.

This current situation is actually a huge improvement on the past. Increased advocacy on the issue and dramatic reductions in the price of pediatric antiretroviral drugs has significantly increased the numbers of children receiving treatment in the past two years - 70 per cent in one year alone.

However, UNAIDS executive director Peter Piot, addressing a symposium on children and HIV and AIDS at the Harvard Medical School in September 2007, says effective responses have been hampered because "the impact of AIDS on children remains under-researched and poorly understood".

The t-shirt is part of an emphasis of the Ecumenical Advocacy Alliance's "Keep the Promise" campaign.