Chronicle Editor
Robin Muchetu, Senior Reporter
Antiretroviral Treatment (ART) remains a challenge with reports that 75 000 children in Zimbabwe are living with HIV and 23 000 are not on treatment, which has led to the death of many such children.
UNAids executive director Ms Winnie Byanyima who has been in the country made this revelation describing it as an injustice to children.
“Our children are facing a huge injustice, we are leaving our children behind, we have been able to get adults onto treatment with all the science we have, the tools and programmes, we are getting adults onto treatment but we are failing to stop new infections among children and getting them on treatment too.
“Here is the data, globally about 660 000 children living with HIV were not getting treatment last year. Over 600 000 of those infections are here in Africa, it is our problem that 90 percent of all children in the whole world who are not on treatment are here, and they are our children. All these precious children could also have a brighter healthier future if we did what is right by them,” said Ms Byanyima.
According to the Ministry of Health and Child Care, over 4 200 children are born with HIV annually in Zimbabwe, a situation that health officials are trying to bring under control by encouraging early testing of pregnant women and scaling up Triple Elimination of Mother to Child Transmission (EMTCT).
About 30 percent of undiagnosed children eventually die by the age of two.
“Globally people who live with HIV and are on treatment are about 77 percent but for children, this is 57 percent. These figures show that there is an injustice in treatment on our continent. So we must find out why and we must correct it. Last year about 84 000 precious children under the age of 15 died because they were not on treatment, 71 000 were our children here in Africa. Last year there were 130 000 new infections in children, of those, 110 000 were in Africa, it is our problem I keep repeating,” she added.
Ms Byanyima gave statistics for children with HIV in Africa and where countries were falling short.
“In Zimbabwe, 75 000 children are living with HIV, 23 000 not on treatment, in Nigeria, we think it is about 170 000 children with HIV, and 117 000 are not on treatment. In Botswana 7 000 are living with HIV and about 3 000 are not on treatment while Mozambique has about 150 000 children with HIV, 43 000 are not on treatment. We have to act, with science and drugs we have today, no baby should be born with HIV and if they are HIV-positive, no child should not be on treatment,” she said.
UNAids set global targets to end Aids by 2030 and also set midway targets which Zimbabwe managed to surpass before 2025.
Zimbabwe has managed to have over 95 percent of people with HIV knowing their status, of those 95 percent being placed on ARV treatment and 95 percent being virally suppressed.
“However, last year was a success, five African countries including Zimbabwe and Botswana achieved the targets that we set for the world, before 2025. We have a goal for 2030 to end this disease as a public health threat. Still in those countries, the target for 95-95-95 was not achieved for children, they were achieved for the rest of the society. So, even in those high-performing countries, children are still being left behind,” she lamented.–@NyembeziMu
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