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About every 100 seconds, a child or young person under the age of 20 was recently infected with HIV last year, bringing the total number of children living with HIV to 2.8 million, the said. Unicef in a recent report.
The UN agency says children are being “left behind” in the fight against HIV.
As HIV prevention and treatment efforts are growing and becoming increasingly available in some regions, many children around the world are unable to access HIV treatment, with Latin America, the Caribbean and West and Central Africa which have the lowest rates of pediatric treatment for the virus.
In 2019, just under half of infected children worldwide did not have access to life-saving care, falling significantly behind coverage for both mothers (85%) and all HIV-infected adults (62%). Nearly 110,000 children died of AIDS last year.
“Even as the world struggles in the midst of an ongoing global pandemic, hundreds of thousands of children continue to suffer the ravages of the HIV epidemic,” said UNICEF Executive Director Henrietta Fore. “The HIV vaccine does not yet exist. Children continue to be infected at an alarming rate and continue to die of AIDS. This was even before Covid-19 disrupted vital HIV treatment and prevention services, putting countless more lives at risk.
“The Covid-19 crisis has further exacerbated inequalities in access to life-saving HIV services for children, adolescents and pregnant mothers everywhere.”
During the months of April and May, coinciding with the partial and total blocks, pediatric treatment for HIV and viral load testing in children in some countries decreased by between 50 and 70% and the start of new treatment decreased by 25-50%.
Likewise, hospital births and maternal treatment were also reported to decrease by 20 to 60 percent, maternal HIV testing and initiation of antiretroviral therapy (ART) decreased by 25 to 50 percent. and infant testing services decreased by about 10%.
The data of the recent Unicef report, Reinventing a resilient response to HIV for children, adolescents and pregnant women living with HIV, found that 150,000 children between the ages of 0 and 9 were recently infected with HIV, bringing the total number of children in this age group living with HIV to 1.1 million.
In addition, 170,000 adolescents between the ages of 10 and 19 have recently been infected with HIV, bringing the total number of adolescents living with HIV to 1.7 million.
The total number of AIDS-related deaths of children and adolescents was 110,000 in 2019, marking a slight decrease of 5% from the 116,800 deaths in 2018.
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