Published by the government of Zimbabwe
5 August 2008
Harare — THE Southern Africa HIV and Aids Information Dissemination Service on Sunday launched a tool kit for children and anti-retroviral therapy during the seventeenth International Aids Conference currently underway in Mexico.
According to the SafAids media resource desk, the tool kit is a vibrant package of informative and interactive material to be used by children and those in the immediate circle of their care.
These include teachers, health care workers, parents and guardians.
The tool kit comprises a booklet on children and ART, a children's adherence calendar and a watch, HIV and ART knowledge game and quiz cards to broaden children's knowledge on the disease.
The 17th International Aids Conference, which opened on Sunday and runs till August 8 under the theme: Universal Access Now, has drawn more than 25 000 participants from across the world.
Among those attending are people living with HIV and Aids, researchers, health care workers, donors and policy makers, who are sharing current knowledge on the pandemic.
Ministry of Health and Child Welfare and non-governmental organisations officials are representing Zimbabwe.
Zimbabwe is expected to share its success story on HIV and Aids decline through a presentation by the National Aids Council on behavioural change.
A number of NGOs, including the Women Action Group and Plan International, are also expected to make presentations during the conference.
Meanwhile, the United Nations Children's Fund, World Health Organisation and UNITAID - an international drug purchase facility - have announced an injection of US$50 million to nine countries, including Zimbabwe, for intensification of Prevention of Mother-to-Child Transmission of HIV over the next two years.
The funding will also provide a one-year free ARV course for HIV-positive pregnant women.
"This effort aims to go beyond mere prevention by promoting ongoing treatment for mothers and their babies," said Dr Philippe Douste-Blazy, UNITAID's executive board chairman.
"Our aim is to fund the most effective and appropriate medicines and diagnostics on the market for both women and children."
The project will also allow Unicef to negotiate reduced drug prices, intensify effective treatment for HIV-infected women as well as prevention of infection in their children.
This means the WHO-recommended treatment protocol - introduced in 2006 and a far superior solution to the single therapy Nevirapine - can be implemented quickly and intensively.
WHO will ensure expansion of the programme, and procurement of commodities through collaboration with the Ministry of Health and Child Welfare.
The other eight countries to benefit from the funding are the Central African Republic, Myanmar, Uganda, China, Nigeria, Swaziland, Haiti and Lesotho.
The targeted countries represent 25 percent of the world's HIV infection in pregnant women giving birth annually.
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