Harare — PARENTS and guardians should take their children for HIV testing so that they can get anti-retroviral therapy early and reduce mortality among young people.

Responding to questions from participants during debate to map the way forward on universal access to treatment recently, World Health Organisation official Dr Christine Chakanyuka said parents and guardians were not taking their children for testing.

She said this had seen many children dying of the disease although the country had enough child ART formulas.

As a result, the country could lose a lot of these drugs through expiring, as they are not being used in time.

"There is a slow uptake of child anti-retroviral therapy in the country and that has had a bearing on efforts to bring universal access to treatment.

"The ministry has enough drugs but the problem lies with administering of the formulas. It is now recommended that infants should be tested of HIV after six weeks of birth and to be instituted on ARVs irrespective of clinical signs," she said. Dr Chakanyuka said parents and guardians needed to be educated so that once children were put on ART, they did not default.

She said the Ministry of Health and Child Welfare with support from WHO had taken to mentorship to ensure health workers understood the practicalities in initiating children on ART.

In his message to mark World Aids Day on December 1 President Mugabe bemoaned the slow uptake of anti-retroviral drugs among children despite the availability of child formulas.

Only 10 percent of the children with HIV were getting ART, leaving the majority at the mercy of the pandemic.