October 26, 2005	Wednesday	Ramzan 21, 1426

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ISLAMABAD, Oct 25: Unicef and UNAID on Tuesday launched a global campaign focusing on the enormous impact of HIV/Aids on children. Both the UN agencies said it was a disgrace that fewer than five per cent of HIV positive children received treatment and that millions of children who had lost parents to the disease went without support.

The global campaign aims to achieve measurable progress for children based on internationally agreed goals in four key result areas like prevention of mother-to-child transmission, paediatric treatment, prevention and protection, and support of children affected by Aids.

A vast majority of the half-million children under the age of 15 who die of AIDS-related illness every year contract HIV through mother-to-child transmission.

The campaign aims at providing 80 per cent of women in need with access to services to prevent transmission of HIV to their babies by 2010. Currently, less than 10 per cent of women have access to these services.

Less than five per cent of HIV-positive children in need of AIDS treatment are receiving it and only one per cent of children born to HIV-infected mothers have access to cotrimoxazole, a low- cost antibiotics that can nearly halve child deaths from AIDS by fighting off deadly infections. Antiretroviral treatment or cotrimoxale will be provided to 80 per cent of children in need by 2010.

Adolescents and young people in the 15-24 age bracket account for roughly half of all new HIV infections, but a vast majority of young people have no access to information, skills and services needed to protect themselves from HIV. The programme aims at reducing the percentage of young people living with HIV by 25 per cent.

By 2010, it is estimated that there will be 18 million children who have lost at least one parent to AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa alone.

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