Campaign overview

Campaign overview

The world must take urgent account of the specific impact of AIDS on children, or there will be no chance of meeting Millennium Development Goal (MDG) 6 - to halt and begin to reverse the spread of the disease by 2015. Failure to meet the goal on HIV and AIDS will adversely affect the world's chances of progress on the other MDGs. The disease continues to frustrate efforts to reduce extreme poverty and hunger, to provide universal primary education, and to reduce child mortality and improve maternal health.

World leaders, from both industrialized and developing countries, have repeatedly made commitments to step up their efforts to fight the spread of HIV and AIDS. They are beginning to increase the political leadership and the resources needed to fight the disease. Significant progress is being made in charting the past and future course of the pandemic, in providing free antiretroviral treatment to those who need it, and in expanding the coverage of prevention services.

But children are still missing out.

In 2007,

the number of children under 15 living with HIV was estimated at 2.1 million;
Approximately 420,000 children were newly-infected with HIV;
290,000 children died of AIDS-related illness.

Millions of children, adolescents and young people in the path of the pandemic are at risk and in need of protection. AIDS is redefining the very meaning of childhood for millions, depriving children of many of their human rights - of the care, love and affection of their parents; of their teachers and other role models; of education and options for the future; of protection against exploitation and abuse.

The world must act now, urgently and decisively, to ensure that the next generation of children is AIDS-free.