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Rumbidzayi Zinyuke
Senior Health Reporter
The new Global Alliance to end AIDS in children by 2030, to which Zimbabwe signed early this year, has set in motion strategies to actively identify children who are being missed in HIV treatment and care.
The Alliance was launched in February following the decision made at the International Aids Conference in Montreal, Canada to ensure that no child living with HIV is denied treatment by the end of the decade and to prevent new infant HIV infections.
Speaking at the regional Sexual Reproductive Health and Rights (SRHR) symposium in South Africa last week, UNAIDS Eastern and Southern Africa regional director Mrs Anne Githuku-Shongwe said it was imperative for countries to identify the missing HIV cases in children.
“In most of our countries about 75 percent of people living with HIV on average in our region are on ARVs but for children that number drops down to 50 percent. We have the real unjust impact of leaving our children behind,” she said.
She said while studies were being conducted to find out the reasons why children are left behind, there were still no full proof answers, hence more children would continue to suffer silently.
The Global Alliance is therefore seeking to ensure that the children were found.
“Some of these children were orphaned and they themselves are parenting other children. They might be actually transmitting to other children in the process. It is also difficult to keep children on treatment because they go to school where there is stigma. As the Global Alliance, we have come together as Ministries of Health and Ministries of Education to say go and find the children, find out who they are, where are they and why are they missing. For some of the are orphans who are vulnerable and don’t go for testing or treatment, there are different ideas on how to intervene, including school based programmes where we try to remove the stigma and have someone making sure they are taking their medication. We believe this is something we can end quickly,” she said.
The Global Alliance was established by UNICEF, WHO, and UNAIDS, and includes civil society movements, including the Global Network of People living with HIV, international partners, PEPFAR and the Global Fund.
According to data released in the 2022 UNAIDS Global AIDS Update, only half (52 percent) of children living with HIV are on life-saving treatment, far behind adults where three quarters (76 percent) are receiving antiretroviral treatment.
In Zimbabwe, the figure stood at 73 percent in 2021, behind the adult treatment coverage of 94 percent.
About 150 000 new HIV infections among children are recorded globally and 5 000 of these occurred in Zimbabwe in 2021.
Zimbabwe was recently recognised for reaching the 95 95 95 targets where 95 percent of all people living with HIV to know their HIV status, 95 percent of all people with diagnosed HIV infection to receive sustained antiretroviral therapy, and 95 percent of all people receiving antiretroviral therapy to have viral suppression by 2025.
Statistics have however shown that while the country’s interventions among the adult population has been good, children and adolescents continue to lag behind.
Government has reiterated its commitment to addressing the disparities affecting women and children in terms of accessing treatment.
The Global Alliance will integrate lessons learnt from past initiatives such as the Global Plan and the Start Free, Stay Free, AIDS Free framework.
It will focus on three pillars namely: early testing and optimised treatment for infants, children, and adolescents living with HIV; closing the treatment gap for pregnant and breastfeeding women living with HIV and optimizing retention in care and preventing new HIV infections among pregnant and breastfeeding women.
The other 11 countries in the alliance are Angola, Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire, The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Kenya, Mozambique, Nigeria, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia.
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