Young HIV victims must not be forgotten
By Alfred Romann (China Daily)
Updated: 2005-09-22 06:25

Inadequate attention

At the same time, attention was seldom paid to the statistically tiny number of children living with HIV/AIDS. Government programmes tend to target the much larger groups of sex workers, intravenous drug users, blood donors and migrant workers.

"No expert now thinks children are a bridge population," said Xu Wenqing at UNICEF, the United Nations programme that focuses on children.

Still, while other groups are more likely to spread the virus into the general population, doctors and activists believe more attention should be paid to children.

"Children and adults alike who are HIV positive should be treated," Ho said.

Now the drugs are available, the problem may not be availability but willingness to come forward.

"Most children with HIV are not hospitalized until the full-blown stage," said Zhu Qirong, a Shanghai-based paediatric specialist.

"In some cases the children die of organ failure, and in others the effect of treatment is not good because HIV/AIDS drugs often have big side effects on children.

"It is really a big question of how to have infected children receive treatment before it is too late."

Societal mores may be one of the tallest hurdles to eradicating or just combating the epidemic among children.

"Most HIV-infected (children), when they find they have HIV, are kicked out of school," said Bill Valentino, Bayer's manager of corporate and social responsibility, who has been in China for 16 years and is one of the leading proponents of corporate involvement.

This lack of general willingness to even diagnose the disease may be the only reason new cases even develop in children.

"It's actually very rare in the West to see paediatric cases," Ho said.

Mother-to-child transmission is the most common cause of HIV in children, but technically it is completely preventable.

The options to prevent it are not always attractive terminating the pregnancy is one of them but medicine has theoretically done away with HIV in newborn children.

Still the number of known mother-to-child transmissions has grown every year since 1995, according to a joint report by the Ministry of Health and the UN Theme Group on HIV/AIDS.

"About 60 per cent of babies of HIV/AIDS-infected mothers turn out to be positive in HIV/AIDS tests," Zhu said.

"One main challenge in dealing with HIV/AIDS cases of children is to avoid infection of pregnant women," Zhu said.

Ultimately, the only sustainable solution may be education towards getting rid of the stigma and allowing patients the freedom to be tested without facing repercussions at home, work or school.

(China Daily 09/22/2005 page5)

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