TORONTO, Aug 15, 2006 (AFP) - Urgent action is needed to treat more than half a million children in need of AIDS drugs and to slash the price of these life-saving treatments, a top medical relief agency warned Tuesday.
Doctors Without Borders (Medecins Sans Frontieres, MSF), said at the world AIDS conference here that only five percent of 660,000 children around the world who desperately need antiretrovirals -- the so-called "cocktail" of AIDS drugs -- had access to them.
The Nobel Peace Prize-winning agency also lashed giant pharmaceutical firms for failing to invest in pediatric AIDS drugs. Most child victims of AIDS live in developing countries, and caring for them does little to swell corporate profits, it charged.
Many infant AIDS victims live in crushing poverty and contracted the disease as infants from HIV positive mothers who themselves have no treatment or prenatal care, MSF said.
Tragically, without medical care, half the children born with HIV die before the age of two.
"We know that treating children works, but with better tools, we could be treating so many more," said Moses Masaquoi, a doctor with MSF in Malawi.
"We see the number of children born with HIV constantly growing in Africa, because expecting mothers don't have access to ante-natal care and children born to HIV positive mothers are largely lost to follow-up.
"It is an enormous frustration that we meet in our daily work."
More than 2.3 million children are living with HIV, the majority in sub-Saharan Africa, where the disease has cut a swathe through poverty-stricken populations.
Of these, 660,000 have an immune system that has been badly compromised by HIV, exposing them to the risk of killer infectious diseases such as tuberculosis and pneumonia.
MSF warned that international agencies already battling AIDS have been late to spot the devastating toll among infected children, and said if the situation is not tackled soon, remedies will come too late.
Alongside the warnings, MSF released two studies which showed good results among HIV infected children treated with antiretroviral drugs.
The potential benefits from such therapies however are limited, as pediatric medicines are overpriced -- costing up to six times more than equivalent drugs for adults, the agency said.
MSF said treating children was fraught with challenges. Diagnosis is tough because antibody-detection tests used for adults are inappropriate for newborns, and test results take too long to process.
The lack of pediatric doses means caregivers must split antiretrovirals used for adults -- an imprecise method of treatment.
For children who weigh less than 10 kilogrammes (22 pounds), even that strategy will not work. The only treatment option is a syrup that the agency said is difficult to measure, tastes bitter and often needs refrigeration.
"Sometimes it is not possible to treat children in the villages because you can't refrigerate a certain type of syrup, and the other one that does not have to be refrigerated provokes anaemia," said Myrto Schaefer of MSF in Australia.
"And then you have a baby of less than three kilogrammes who already has anaemia, and you can't give it to him!"
Adding to the frustration is the fact that the drugs that do exist for children are vastly overpriced.
"Because the vast majority of infected children live in poor countries, most pharmaceutical companies are hardly investing in developing pediatric formulations," MSF said in a press statement.
Fernando Pascual, an MSF pharmacist, said the price of some infant formulations is reaching record levels.
Former US president Bill Clinton, at the conference in his role as a campaigner on issues including the AIDS epidemic, said he recognised the terrible plight of HIV-infected children, and was committed to help alleviating it.
"I have been despairing of this. I understood why the governments didn't spend money on pediatric medicines, in the beginning it was more expensive and wide swathes of young adults were dying," he told reporters.
Clinton said several global governments had now recognised the problem, and were devoting new funding to the plight of children.
"Pediatric treatment has lagged behind other treatment woefully for the last few years, given the change in funding priorities, it might actually jump ahead in the next two years."
MSF released data on Tuesday showing that given the right treatment, at the right time, the youngest victims of the AIDS epidemic, which has killed 25 million people, can be saved.
Figures showed that among 3,754 children under 13 years old in 14 nations, 80 percent were alive and continuing therapy after 24 months, with few adverse side effects, and patients' immune systems were improving.
060815
AF060868
Copyright ©AFP 2006. All Rights Reserved. AFP articles contained on the AEGiS web site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, displayed, published or broadcast without AFP's prior written permission. You may make one copy of each article for your personal, non-commercial use only; more copies would require AFP's prior written permission. obtained from the owners of any trademarks or copyrighted materials whose marks and materials are included in AFP photos or materials. Therefore you will be solely responsible for obtaining any and all necessary releases from whatever individuals and/or entities necessary for any uses of AFP stories, photos or graphics. http://www.afp.com/
AEGiS is a 501(c)3, not-for-profit, tax-exempt, educational corporation. AEGiS is made possible through unrestricted grants from Boehringer Ingelheim, Elton John AIDS Foundation, the National Library of Medicine, Bridgestone Firestone Trust Fund, and donations from users like you. Always watch for outdated information. This article first appeared in 2006. This material is designed to support, not replace, the relationship that exists between you and your doctor.
©1990, 2006 - AEGiS. AEGiS presents published material, reprinted with permission and neither endorses nor opposes any material. All materials appearing on AEGiS are protected by copyright as a collective work or compilation under U.S. copyright and other laws and are the property of AEGiS, or the party credited as the provider of the content.
