Tuesday in Abidjan, the director of UNAIDS pleaded for universal access to antiretroviral treatment for children. Especially in Africa where 90% of these young patients live.
Ebola, famines, armed conflicts, the African continent is home to many of the Earth’s ills. To this we can add AIDS since it is in Africa that almost all HIV-positive children live, deplored this Tuesday in Abidjan, the executive director of UNAIDS, Michel Sidibé.
This HIV specialist advocated for universal access to antiretroviral treatment for children. “It is a question of social justice, it is a question of deep inequality because 90% of children living with AIDS are unfortunately in Africa,” he said in comments reported by the Agency. France Presse (AFP) at the opening of a meeting on pediatric AIDS. It brought together around ten ministers of health from the continent and international experts.
20 years of antiretrovirals haven’t changed anything
In Côte d’Ivoire for example, “only 18% of children under 5 living with HIV / AIDS are on antiretroviral treatment,” recalled Terence McCulley, United States Ambassador to Côte d’Ivoire and whose country has invested “more than 550 billion FCFA (839 million euros) to support the actions of the Ivorian government against the pandemic”.
The president of the National Association for the Support of Seropositive and AIDS Patients (ANSS) in Burundi, Jeanne Gapiya, declared for her part: “it is not normal that 20 years after the advent of antiretroviral treatments, children still die ”of AIDS. We know that five million people still do not have access to HIV treatment in Central and West Africa, according to a report by the NGO Médecins Sans Frontière (MSF) published in March, which qualifies this situation of “strategic fault” of the international community.
23 billion missing to eradicate the epidemic
In this context, a recent United Nations report estimates that if 23 billion euros are not invested in the fight against HIV, the eradication goals by 2030 will not be met. “If we accept the status quo and stay there, the epidemic will start again in a number of low- and middle-income countries. The considerable investments that we have made and the greatest movement that humanity has known to defend the right to health will have been in vain, ”wrote Ban Ki-moon, Secretary General of the United Nations.
So, to achieve the goal, Hakima Himmich, president of Coalition PLUS, appealed directly to the French president in a statement: “By hosting the Global Fund replenishment conference and increasing its contribution to the Fund by 20%, Justin Trudeau (1) confirms that the fight against pandemics remains one of his priorities. We call on François Hollande to follow his example, by in turn increasing France’s contribution to the Global Fund, to rid the planet of AIDS and pandemics ”.
(1) Prime Minister of Canada since November 4, 2015
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