MISS KERREL McKay, 20-year-old AIDS activist and member of the Portland AIDS Committee, has been selected by the United Nations to chair the launch on Tuesday, October 25, of a five-year global campaign on children and AIDS.
Led by the United Nations Children's Fund and UNAIDS, the campaign is aimed at calling attention to the impact of HIV on children. Entitled 'United for Children, Unite against AIDS', it will seek to mobilise resources to scale up interventions to prevent new infections, help children affected by HIV/AIDS and ensure children have a central place on the global HIV/AIDS agenda.
AIDS ORPHANS INCREASED
Between 2001 and 2003, the global number of children orphaned by AIDS increased from 11.5 million to 15 million. In 2004, 510,000 children under the age of 15 died of AIDS-related illnesses, 640,000 were newly infected with HIV and 2.2 million are living with the virus. The lives of these children are being radically altered by the impact of HIV/AIDS on their families, communities, schools, health care and welfare systems.
At present globally, less than five per cent of orphans are receiving public support, less than two per cent of HIV-positive children are receiving treatment and only eight per cent of HIV-positive women have access to PMTCT (prevention of mother to child transmission) services.
