UNICEF Calls for AIDS Prevention for Youth

On Wednesday and Thursday in Berlin, a major donor meeting is taking place to collect pledges for the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria. Participants at the conference include the United Nations, G-8 nations, and non-governmental agencies. In one of the funding scenarios envisioned, the Global Fund estimates it would need $12 billion to $18 billion to replenish grants for the disease-fighting programs it supports between 2008 and 2010.

Ahead of the Berlin conference, UNICEF insisted that more HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment programming target youths. "With a view to the donor conference of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Malaria and Tuberculosis, UNICEF demands that greater efforts be made at last to improve the medical care of 2.3 million children worldwide infected with HIV," UNICEF announced in a statement. "Children are still being disadvantaged in the fight against AIDS. Hundreds of thousands of girls and boys are dying because of a lack of medicine and shortage of health care providers," said Heide Simonis, UNICEF's chairperson for Germany.

Cheaper, easier-to-administer pediatric antiretroviral drugs that do not require refrigeration represent a breakthrough in fighting AIDS in the developing world, UNICEF said. But despite the improvements, many youths will be left behind unless donor nations "keep their promises so that the latest developments in AIDS research can also benefit children in the developing world," said UNICEF.

AIDS, TB and malaria kill more than 6 million people annually, according to the Global Fund.

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