Word: hiv
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...already see the difference in Lesotho, a tiny mountain kingdom of 2 million people surrounded by its much larger and richer neighbor, South Africa. At least 22,000 Basotho children are HIV positive, but as of two years ago, fewer than 20 were on ARVs, and there were only two doctors in the whole country looking after children with AIDS. In the year since the children's clinic opened on the outskirts of Maseru, 700 kids--including Bokang--have received treatment from 10 pediatricians...
...have enough food to build up their strength or clean water to keep from picking up infections. Tough as it has been to focus attention on children with AIDS, it has been harder for clinics to get and use a common antibiotic to prevent pneumonia and other ills in HIV-positive children who don't yet need ARVs. "One of the biggest obstacles in treating children has been having a consistent guardian," says Dr. Martha Sommers, head of clinical services at Embangweni Hospital, a church-run facility in rural Malawi. "Often the guardian is sick or dying, or the children...
...children who come to the clinics infected at birth. In some parts of sub-Saharan Africa, teenage girls are now eight times as likely to be infected with HIV as their male peers. Study after study has shown that the best way to ensure that young girls who are HIV negative remain that way is to keep them in school, delay sexual intercourse and marriage, help them get good jobs and allow them greater control of their income...
...this year. Other groups are scaling up. More than 1,400 children are receiving antiretroviral therapy in Rwanda--up from 354 in 2004--and more than a third of pregnant women are getting treatment to preserve their lives and reduce the risk of delivering an HIV-positive infant, according to UNICEF. There will always be more to do, but at long last the work has begun...
...number of babies infected with HIV at birth has dropped dramatically--from its peak of more than 1,600 in 1991 to fewer than 50 in 2004--thanks to AZT regimens for HIV-positive mothers. But that leaves nearly 10,000 U.S. children who have been diagnosed with AIDS, and their long-term prognosis says a lot about what lies ahead for millions of children in the developing world...