PRESS BRIEFING ON IMPACT OF AIDS EPIDEMIC ON CHILDREN

Press Briefing

PRESS BRIEFING ON IMPACT OF AIDS EPIDEMIC ON CHILDREN

The world has never seen a comparably complex public health hazard as that which it is currently experiencing in dealing with the effects of the AIDS epidemic on children, correspondents were told this afternoon in a briefing given by Dr. Peter Piot, Executive Director of the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), and Stephen Lewis, Deputy Executive Director of the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF).

The impact of AIDS on children was not limited simply to their increasing rates of infection, but also to the fact that in 10 years' time, over 40 million children were expected to be orphaned as a result of AIDS, Dr. Piot said. Many children were having to withdraw from school and becoming in effect heads of households or joining the ranks of the street children. HIV was posing a life- long threat to children: last year, over 500,000 children were born with HIV because their mothers were infected and did not have access to prevention methods; every minute, five young people between the ages of 10 and 24 became infected with HIV.

However, Dr. Piot said there was good evidence that HIV education and prevention efforts worked very well with teenagers and young people. "So, it's not a hopeless case. We have evidence from Western countries, from Thailand, from Uganda showing really spectacular decline of HIV infections when the right measures are being taken", he said. It was not acceptable that the world was not applying what had been proven to work, he added.

The UNAIDS had re-oriented its approaches to the AIDS epidemic by putting children at its centre, Dr. Piot said. HIV education efforts with young people would have a dramatic impact on the course of the epidemic. Not only because over 50 per cent of new infections were occurring in young people, but in many countries young people accounted for a majority of the population. In addition, safe behaviours and norms adopted during adolescence were likely to persist throughout life, making the response against the AIDS epidemic more sustainable. The UNAIDS had discovered that a generic response to the AIDS epidemic tended to neglect young people.

This year, UNAIDS was putting emphasis on children as agents for change, he said. The focus was on prevention through education, partnerships with the media and religious organizations, prevention of transmission from mother to child, improving care for children with HIV, and organizing support for all the children orphaned as a result of HIV.

Mr. Lewis added that a pilot programme aimed at preventing transmission from mother to child was being initiated in 10 severely affected countries. The programme included voluntary and confidential testing and counselling and short course AZT.

UNAIDS Briefing - 2 - 6 October 1998

In response to a question, Dr. Piot said that the first signs of decline in new infection rates in Thailand had begun to appear about three or four years ago. Education efforts to reduce those infections were a cooperative effort by non-governmental organizations and community groups with support from the Government and the United Nations system. In response to a question on Latin America, Dr. Piot said Honduras was one of the most severely affected countries, with 4 to 5 per cent of adults infected. However, in absolute terms, Brazil had the highest numbers. He added that Brazil had an exemplary AIDS programme, probably the best in the world.

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