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Unicef calls for more Aids meds
26/09/2007 09:07 - (SA)
Berlin - The United Nations Children's Fund on Tuesday called for more Aids prevention and medication programmes aimed at young people ahead of a major meeting in Berlin to raise funds to fight the disease.
"With a view to the donor conference of the Global Fund to Fight Aids, Malaria and Tuberculosis, Unicef demands that greater efforts be made at last to improve the medical care of 2.3 million children worldwide infected with HIV," the UN body said in a statement.
It said that only 15% of the children who need anti-retroviral drugs are receiving them, and that 330 000 children are dying every year of Aids.
"Children are still being disadvantaged in the fight against Aids. Hundreds of thousands of girls and boys are dying because of a lack of medicine and shortage of healthcare providers," said Unicef's chairperson for Germany, Heide Simonis.
The body said this was the case despite Aids drugs being cheaper than ever and despite the development of an anti-retroviral treatment especially for children which is easier to administer and does not need cold storage.
The drug represented a breakthrough in the fight against Aids in developing nations, it said.
The Global Fund is bringing together officials from the United Nations, G8 nations and non-governmental organisations from Wednesday to Thursday to collect pledges to fund its programmes between 2008 and 2010.
The fund estimates that it needs between $12bn and $18bn to fight Aids, malaria and tuberculosis over this three-year period.
Together, it says, the three diseases kill more than six million people a year.
Unicef urged donor nations to "keep their promises so that the latest developments in Aids research can also benefit children in the developing world".
The Global Fund was set up in 2002 at the instigation of then-UN secretary general Kofi Annan. It has so far spent about $7bn dollars in grants for 450 programmes in 136 different countries.
- AFP
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