Only 52% of children living with HIV have access to life saving medication that they need. Without quality treatment, almost half of these children will not live to see their second birthday.
HIV acquisition and AIDS related deaths are preventable. With 120,000 children needlessly dying from an AIDS related illness every year, world leaders must ‘Wake Up’ to how we are failing children living with HIV.
At a recent international conference, patients and civil society organisations came together to demand that the world take action and produced a document of recommendations called the Kigali Declaration.
The UK Government must respond to the Kigali Declaration and play a leading role in stopping children needlessly dying without access to timely HIV diagnosis and affordable treatments.
WHAT THE UK GOVERNMENT MUST DO
Speak Out, Don’t Be Silent –
It is more important than ever for our leaders to show serious political leadership by speaking up for the rights of children living with HIV. We’re urging the UK to ensure that a Government Minister participates in July’s International AIDS Conference, accompanied by a young person.
Invest, Don’t Neglect –
The profit driven research and development (R&D) model for medicines means that there is a lack of incentives for pharmaceutical companies to invest in certain issues if they won’t make money from them, like HIV medicine for children.
It’s encouraging that the Government has increased funding for research into global health. But we have concerns that conditions attached to government grants are not sufficient to guarantee that resulting medicines from public research will be affordable. To create a thriving environment for HIV research that ensures access to medicines, the UK Government should introduce public interest conditions to government funding contracts for R&D. This way, publicly funded R&D for medication produces drugs that are accessible and affordable by the public.
Actions Speak Louder Than Words –
The Government’s Ending Preventable Deaths Action Plan is soon to be launched which will focus on ending preventable deaths of new-borns, children and mothers.
The plan gives the Government a huge opportunity to scale up the HIV response and prove its commitment to supporting children living with HIV. The Government needs to ensure that young people and children living with HIV are prioritised within this and other government health strategies.
