Children and HIV and AIDS
The big picture
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| © UNICEF/ HQ05-1409/Nesbitt |
| Women sit with their children on beds in Malawi Hospital. UNICEF provides the hospital with therapeutic milk, vaccines, HIV-testing kits and other medical supplies. |
HIV and AIDS are causing untold human suffering. In some countries, it is also reversing decades of development progress. While the epidemic’s evolution has varied across regions, there is one common denominator: HIV and AIDS are increasingly a disease of the young and most vulnerable, particularly girls. Of the 2.1 million children living with HIV in 2007, 420,000 were children, mainly through mother-to-child transmission.
Through Unite for Children, Unite against AIDS, UNICEF is actively drawing the world’s attention to the fact that children are still largely missing from the global response to HIV and AIDS. It does so by sharing evidence on the situation of children affected by HIV and AIDS, convening a wide range of stakeholders to ensure better international coherence and coordination of responses, and working in partnership to assist governments in planning and implementing national programmes for children. There are more opportunities to achieve results for children than could have been anticipated when the campaign was launched in 2005. By December 2007, children and AIDS has become more clearly integrated into national policy frameworks, including implementation of national plans of action (NPAs) in at least 34 countries.
The challenge now facing UNICEF and partners among the international community, national governments and key stakeholders, is the comprehensive, massive scaling up of interventions to meet the targets of the ‘Four Ps’ and Universal Access by 2010.
Acronyms
AIDS: Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome
HIV: Human Immunodeficiency Virus
NPAs: National Plans of Action
