As the 21st International AIDS Conference gets underway in Durban this week, UNICEF warned that despite remarkable global progress in tackling the HIV/AIDS pandemic, much work remains to be done to protect children and adolescents from infection, sickness and death.
Since 2000, concerted action to prevent mother-to-child transmission (PMTCT) in countries with high HIV/AIDS prevalence has brought the transmission rate down by roughly 70 per cent worldwide. This includes sub-Saharan Africa, the region with the greatest burden of HIV/AIDS infections and deaths. Over the last 15 years, PMTCT programmes have prevented some 1.6 million new HIV infections in children, globally, while the provision of anti-retroviral treatment has saved 8.8 million lives (people of all ages).
But the children’s agency said that adolescents are dying of AIDS at alarming rates.
“After all of the saved and improved lives thanks to prevention, treatment and care; after all of the battles won against prejudice and ignorance about this disease; after all of the wonderful milestones achieved, AIDS is still the number two cause of death for those aged 10-19 globally – and number one in Africa,” said UNICEF Executive Director Anthony Lake. Read more on this here.