White House Partnership on Pediatric HIV/AIDS a Positive Development, says Global AIDS Alliance

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GLOBAL AIDS ALLIANCE

White House Partnership on Pediatric HIV/AIDS a Positive Development, says Global AIDS Alliance

Contact: Bryden, 202-789-0432 x 211 or mobile 202-549-3664

Washington, March 13 -- Today the White House announced a new partnership to accelerate children's access to HIV/AIDS medication in developing countries.

Adults living with AIDS have relatively greater access to life-saving medication than children. HIV tests appropriate for infants and formulations of AIDS medicine appropriate for children are either expensive or simply unavailable.

Without proper diagnosis and treatment, 40% of HIV-positive infants die before reaching 18 months of age. There are 2.3 million children under the age of 15 living with HIV/AIDS, and 570,000 children died of AIDS in 2005.

"This new partnership is an encouraging development, and it shows the US is beginning to take this problem seriously," said Dr. Zeitz, Executive Director of the Global AIDS Alliance (GAA).

"The first order of business should be to issue a clear timeline for progress in expanding access to diagnosis and treatment, including easy-to-take, generically-manufactured combination medicine. By setting an explicit goal for the number of children it intends to place on treatment, the US could provide an incentive for greater production of low-cost pediatric tests and medicine," said Zeitz.

Last month, GAA issued a report, now available on the GAA website, entitled, "Children Left Behind: Global Stakeholders Failing to Adequately Prevent or Treat Pediatric HIV/AIDS." The report calls on the US to set a clear timeline for ensuring that 15% of those on treatment via PEPFAR are children.

The partnership is an agreement among several brand name and generic manufacturers, together with the Office of the US Global AIDS Coordinator, UNAIDS, and UNICEF. Their commitments include taking "practical steps to address key barriers" to pediatric treatment and "develop[ing] systems...to facilitate rapid regulatory review, approval, manufacturing and availability of pediatric ARV formulations."

"These are important promises, but this partnership needs to be broadened," said Zeitz. "We need more producers of diagnostic tests at the table, and full access to affordable tests, including for infants, must be a top priority from the start. For this partnership to succeed, we also need the participation of the World Health Organization, representatives of AIDS-impacted countries, including their regulatory agencies, and civil society.”

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