U.N. summit sets plan to stop HIV child infections

[cory777]

Source: Reuters

(Reuters) - World leaders at a U.N. AIDS summit launched a plan on Thursday to try to eliminate by 2015 most new HIV infections among children, who inherit the condition from already infected mothers.

The campaign was launched as the leaders also agreed on a target of reaching 15 million people with HIV treatment, more than double the number who currently get it, also by 2015.

Both goals were announced just weeks after groundbreaking new data showed that early treatment of the human immunodeficiency virus, or HIV, which causes AIDS, can cut its transmission to a sexual partner by 96 percent.

In 2009, some 370,000 children were born with HIV, or one nearly every minute -- the vast majority of them in 22 countries, almost all in Africa. But providing HIV-positive pregnant women with treatment can reduce the risk of a child being born with the virus to less than 5 percent.

Read more: http://in.reuters.com/article/2011/06/10/idINIndia-57616920110610

---

News That Matters http://activistnews.blogspot.com/