Children Helping Children
posted on January 1, 2010 in News | 
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The PCC’s Karen Plater
There are an estimated two million children living with HIV and AIDS around the world and two-thirds of them do not have the HIV medication they need to live. At the United Nations in November, letters written by children from 14 countries were on display, asking governments and pharmaceutical companies for greater access to drug treatment. The Write for Life exhibit drew representatives from UNICEF, UNAIDS and numerous country missions to the UN.
“The messages from the children were simple: kids are sick, they need our help,” said the Presbyterian Church’s Karen Plater, associate secretary for Stewardship and Education for Mission. Plater opened the exhibit as the co-chair of the Ecumenical Advocacy Alliance’s HIV and AIDS strategy group, the group responsible for launching the UN’s Prescription for Life campaign. “Our world is so complex today that sometimes we lose sight of that simplicity. The children remind us that this fight is not over, we need to keep fighting.”
The letters urge simple and affordable diagnostic tests for infants that can be performed on the spot, increased antiretroviral treatment for all HIV-positive expectant mothers, and increased efforts by pharmaceutical companies and governments to find more appropriate and accessible treatments for children and infants.
Plater also moderated a panel discussion featuring a diverse group of experts in the field of HIV.
Rob Dintruff of Abbott Pharmaceuticals
“The speakers emphasized that appropriate testing and follow-up care were important in identifying children living with HIV, and that we need to provide more appropriate and accessible treatments for children and infants,” said Plater. “All agreed, while progress has been made in both testing and treatment, there is a lot more to be done.”
One of the main challenges to progress is the fact that preventing transmission to the child involves many steps. Mothers first need to be identified, then, antiretroviral therapy must be given to the mother during pregnancy, then to the child when the child is born, followed by a program to prevent transmission through breast feeding.
“When I was at the International AIDS conference in Mexico in 2008 it was fairly controversial about the best way to feed the child,” said Plater. “Some studies showed that in settings where there is little access to clean water, sanitation and health services, that even with an HIV-positive mother, exclusive breast feeding for the first six months was still best for the baby, because the risk of the baby dying of malnutrition or diarrhea from contaminated water was much higher than contracting HIV.”
Dr. Rene Ehounou Ekpini, UNICEF
Ensuring access to these numerous treatments, choosing the most appropriate type of drug treatment, as well as ensuring compliance, are therefore hotly discussed in expert circles.
“At the panel discussion in New York, we were also reminded that the best way to prevent mother-to-child transmission of HIV was to ensure that mothers don’t get infected.”
Presbyterian World Service and Development is a member of the ecumenical agency, providing grants for their advocacy work. PWS&D is working with partners in Canada as well as Malawi, India, Kenya, Tanzania, Nicaragua and Pakistan on the prevention of mother-to-child transmission, providing home-based care to people living with AIDS, providing access to HIV and AIDS counselling and testing in remote areas, teaching and equipping people to prevent the spread, supporting grandmothers and other guardians caring for orphans and vulnerable children, and working against stigma and discrimination.
According to the EAA, 90 per cent of the more than two million children with HIV live in sub-Saharan Africa, where access to basic health care is often available only to the privileged. ”This is about the basic right to life,” said Dr. Rene Ehounou Ekpini, chief of the HIV/AIDS health section at UNICEF. ”This is about inequality. This is about justice.”
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