UNICEF Launches Campaign to Protect Nigerian Children Against AIDS
Posted on: Tuesday, 8 November 2005, 09:01 CST
UNICEF launches campaign to protect Nigerian children against AIDS
LAGOS, Nov. 7 (Xinhua) -- The United Nations Children's Fund ( UNICEF) is to launch a campaign on Tuesday aimed at protecting children against AIDS in Abuja, capital of Nigeria, a UNICEF statement said on Monday.
The campaign is necessary because so far "children see only a fraction of the resources dedicated to fight AIDS" and are missing from the national AIDS response, the statement said.
"Less than five percent of HIV positive children have access to life-preserving pediatric drugs. Less than 10 percent of children orphaned and made vulnerable by AIDS receive outside support. And less than 10 percent of women receive services to prevent the transmission of HIV to their babies," it said.
"And yet children are paying a disproportionately high price for the HIV pandemic. Globally every minute, a child under the age of 15 dies because of AIDS," said the statement.
It stated that although more than 600,000 infants are born with HIV every year, 300,000 of them will not reach their fifth birthday.
With 3.5 million persons living with AIDS of which thousands are children, Nigeria has the third highest number of people infected with HIV/AIDS in the world, it said.
According to the statement, the 1.8 million Nigerian children who are orphans due to AIDS receive no support.
"Most children are infected through mother-to-child transmission, yet only less than one percent of pregnant HIV positive women receive anti-retroviral drugs to prevent the spread of HIV to their babies in Nigeria."
The UNICEF said that in the next five years, it will unite the efforts of all those fighting AIDS to meet children's needs in four key areas.
They are preventing mother-to-child transmission, providing pediatric treatment, preventing infection among adolescents and young people as well as protecting and supporting children affected by AIDS.
Source: Xinhua News Agency - CEIS
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