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UN agencies announce massive
scale-up in fight against HIV in mothers,
children |
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ADDIS
ABEBA(August 5, 2008)
- As
the world's leaders and AIDS community gather in Mexico for the biennial
global conference on HIV and AIDS, UNITAID, UNICEF and the World Health
Organization (WHO) announced an infusion of $50 million aimed at halting
mother-to-child transmission of HIV, according to reports published
at the weekend.
Over the next two years, UNITAID funding will be used to test some
10 million pregnant women for HIV and treat 285 000 mothers and children
in nine target countries: Central African Republic, China, Haiti,
Lesotho, Myanmar, Nigeria, Swaziland, Uganda, and Zimbabwe. These
countries represent approximately 25% of the world's HIV-infected
pregnant women giving birth annually, Medical news reported.
"This effort aims to go beyond mere prevention by promoting ongoing
treatment for mothers and their babies", the report quoted Dr
Philippe Douste-Blazy, Chair of UNITAID's Executive Board as saying.
"Our aim is to fund the most effective and appropriate medicines
and diagnostics on the market for both women and children."
A novel element of the project is that it will allow UNICEF to negotiate
reduced drug prices, allowing for a greater scale-up of more effective
treatment for HIV-infected women as well as aim to prevent infection
in their children.
This ramping up means the WHO-recommended treatment protocol - introduced
in 2006 and a far superior solution to the single therapy Nevirapine
- can be implemented much more quickly and intensively.
Funding will also provide a one-year course of antiretroviral treatment
to HIV positive pregnant women in need, in the nine countries.
"Testing pregnant women for HIV gives mothers a better chance
to survive this disease," said Ann M. Veneman, UNICEF Executive
Director. "Women, their children and their entire communities
benefit when life-saving treatment is provided to HIV positive mothers
as quickly as possible."
WHO will ensure that expansion of programmes, use of antiretroviral
medicines and procurement of commodities are done according to published
guidelines and recommendations through close collaboration with Ministries
of Health. WHO will also provide support in monitoring and evaluating
prevention-of-mother-to-child transmission programmes to meet national
targets.
"Women are one of the main target groups for WHO action,"
said Dr Margaret Chan, WHO Director-General. "Women play an important
role in the functioning of communities, in caring for and educating
children and make invaluable contributions to societies' development."
The three agencies are already funding and providing commodities to
prevent mother to child HIV transmission in eight African countries,
representing approximately 342 000 women.
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