KENYA/SOUTH AFRICA: United Nations seeks to eliminate mother to child HIV-AIDs transmission by 2015

Record ID: 361480

  • Title: KENYA/SOUTH AFRICA: United Nations seeks to eliminate mother to child HIV-AIDs transmission by 2015
  • Date: 12th January 2010
  • Summary: NAIROBI, KENYA (FILE) (REUTERS) PAN ACROSS HOSPITAL WARD WITH AIDS PATIENTS ON BEDS CLOSEUP OF PATIENT LYING IN BED TWO PATIENTS SHARING A BED PATIENT WEARING OXYGEN MASK JOHANNESBURG, SOUTH AFRICA (FILE) (REUTERS) PAIR OF WOMEN SEATED BESIDE PATIENT IN BED VARIOUS OF AIDS PATIENTS IN BED AIDS DRUGS ON SHELVES
  • Embargoed: 27th January 2010 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Topics: International Relations,Health
  • Reuters ID: LVA8AWD7QYIII31W2MYENV5ZZFCT
  • Story Text: UNAIDS, the United Nations body tasked with fighting HIV-AIDs said on Monday (January 11) it aims for virtual elimination of mother-to-child AIDs transmission by 2015 as a step towards eventual elimination of the epidemic in Sub-Sahara Africa, in line with the millennium development goals.
    "It is not an expensive activity. What is lacking right now, certainly, is this global solidarity to make sure that resources are mobilised or directed to make virtual elimination our major agenda and it is possible before 2015," said UNAIDS Executive Director, Michel Sidibe.
    Sub-Saharan Africa remains the region most heavily affected, accounting for 67 percent of all people living with HIV and 91 percent of all new infections among children. Currently 400,000 children are born annually with the virus that causes AIDS.
    Elsewhere, the failure by the G8, a group of eight rich nations, to fulfil development aid pledges made five years ago is setting back efforts to fight extreme poverty in Africa, a top U.N. advisor warned.
    Professor Jeffrey Sachs, the U.N. Secretary General's special advisor, told journalists the lack of funds has directly led to deaths on a continent grappling abject poverty and disease.
    "Instead of increasing aid by 30 billion dollars per year, they increased it by about 7 billion dollars per year. This is not adequate for our world to make big announcements and then have them disappear hoping that someone will forget," said Sachs, who is Director of the Earth Institute.
    Soaring food and oil prices as well as climate change have also deepened Africa's plight, said Sachs.
    He called for more research and innovative agricultural practices to mitigate the effects of climate change, suggesting Genetically Modified seeds offer a potentially historic breakthrough in the fight against hunger that could reduce extreme poverty in Africa by half by 2015.
    "As a broad technology we should embrace it as a potential way for African farmers as well as for farmers around the world to be able to meet this great challenge worldwide of reducing hunger and improving nutrition and improving the resilience of crops to the growing climate crisis," Sachs said.
    U.N. millennium development goals to reduce poverty were agreed at a United Nations summit in 2000.
    They set African and other poor countries targets to raise living standards by 2015.
    Africa has made the least progress in meeting those goals, only 3 billion U.S. dollars of the 25 billion U.S. dollars that G8 nations pledged for Africa by 2010 in 2005 had so far reached countries it was earmarked for.
    G8 nations are scheduled to meet again in Canada in June.
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