Africa Should Protect Children From AIDS: Machel

More must be done to protect Africa's children from HIV, and the continent's leaders should change their priorities regarding national budgets, according to the wife of former South African President Nelson Mandela. "I am not really convinced that some of the budgets we have for defense are absolutely necessary," Graca Machel said Thursday while launching the Campaign to End Pediatric HIV/AIDS (CEPA). "There is a need to redirect resources from defense. For me the priorities are health, education, water supply, agriculture." CEPA aims to work with governments and community-based organizations to speed the provision of drugs to prevent mother-to-child HIV transmission. Its goal is to reach at least 80 percent of at-risk children, more than double the current proportion accessing preventive treatment, by 2012.

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