Over 2 Million Children Worldwide are HIV Infected

The data are gruesome. About 4 million people got infected with HIV in 2006 and another 3 million died of it. Until now, about 25 million people have died of AIDS and other 40 million people are infected with HIV worldwide, most of them in the Sub-Saharan Africa.

A new report made by World Health Organization, UNICEF and UNAIDS shows that more than 2 million children worldwide were HIV positive in 2007. Most of them received the virus while in the womb of their mothers. About 290,000 children under the age of 15 died of AIDS in 2007, and 12.1 million children in sub-Saharan Africa remained orphans of one or both parents because of AIDS, as revealed by the report.

"Today's children and young people have never known a world free of AIDS. Children must be at the heart of the global AIDS agenda," said UNICEF executive director Ann Veneman.

The report pointed four fields essential in hampering the epidemic: impeding HIV transmission from mothers to children; pediatric treatment; campaigns aimed to prevent infection among adolescents and young people; protection and support for HIV positive children. The results in this battle vary.

21 countries, including Botswana, Brazil, Rwanda, South Africa and Thailand, are on the way to reach 80 % coverage for avoiding mother-to-child HIV transmission by 2010, which represents a significant rise comparing with just 11 countries in 2005.

The HIV-positive pregnant women receiving retroviral drugs to decrease the rate of HIV transmission to the fetuses increased by 60 % from 2005 to 2006, but the overall number means less than 23 %. The percentage of HIV-positive children in developing countries receiving retrovirals increased by 70 % from 75,000 to 127,000 in the 2005-2006 period.

The report also welcomed a budget increase in the prevention, treatment and protection fight against HIV/AIDS, from $ 6.1 billion to $ 10 billion in 2007, even if more funding is necessary.

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