UN: More Than 300 Children Die Daily of AIDS-Related Causes – By Anita Powell (VOA News) / Dec 1 2019
JOHANNESBURG, SOUTH AFRICA – Jane Mabasa was just 9 years old when she received what she was sure was a death sentence. She was sick, skinny and alone, having been separated from her ill mother and brought to an AIDS hospice in Johannesburg.
That was in 2006. At the time, South Africa’s health system was in deep denial about the epidemic, and global AIDS fatalities were more than three times what they are today. Before she arrived at the Sparrow Village AIDS Hospice, more than 7,000 children had died, at the alarming rate of nine deaths each week.
She was sure she would soon join them. In fact, she said, she wanted to.
“I was very sick, to such an extent that, you know, the only thing that could give me peace was to die,” said Mabasa, who is now 22, in treatment and healthy. “So when I was 14 years old, they started explaining to me that this is what’s happening, and you were born with this disease and you have to accept it, and you just have to live with it.”
And so, that’s what she did.
Mabasa and the more than 180 residents of this small community are living proof that HIV no longer has to be a fatal diagnosis. Longevity, treatment and access to care have improved worldwide.
But this year, as World AIDS Day, the annual event to raise awareness of the global epidemic, turns 31, the United Nations Children’s Fund is warning that not all children are so lucky. In fact, the organization says, children are dying at the rate of 320 per day around the world — and about half of them are not in treatment. Those are alarming statistics, because with early intervention and treatment HIV-positive patients can live long, healthy lives.
Dr. Chewe Luo, who heads UNICEF’s HIV/AIDS section, says health care providers need to treat HIV as a family matter.
“Children are falling behind the treatment drive globally,” she told VOA. “And today we’re talking about 54% of children accessing treatment, about half of children are accessing treatment. Mortality in this age group is still high. … But there’s also the aspect, that, if we are treating adults, we need to change the way we deliver services. For every adult that’s really accessing treatment, are we really asking about the children?”
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