Women at risk despite falling HIV drug costs

JOHANNESBURG Access to AIDS treatment improved dramatically in the developing world in the past year -- with drugs getting cheaper and many countries finding new ways to reach more people with care. But the situation remains bleak for pregnant women and children with HIV, according to a new report by the World Health Organization, UNAIDS and Unicef. In sub-Saharan Africa, home to more than two-thirds of people with HIV-AIDS, there has been an astounding acceleration in the rollout of life-saving anti-retroviral drugs. In 2003, just 100,000 people in all of Africa (where 28 million are living with HIV) had access to the drugs. By the end of 2006, there were more than 1.3 million on the medication."That's a 13-fold increase in treatment, it's a major jump," said Kevin De Cock, director of HIV-AIDS for the WHO. "Treatment scale-up in adults is remarkable."Yet even with the increase, less than a third of people with AIDS who need the drugs can get them -- both in Africa and across all poor and middle-income countries, the figure is 28 per cent. "We need to keep pushing and push harder," Dr. De Cock said.Children continue to lag painfully. While the number getting treatment jumped 50 per cent to 75,000 last year, that represents just 15 per cent of those who need it. Ninety per cent of children with AIDS live in Africa.And just 11 per cent of the two million pregnant women with HIV --again, the vast majority are in Africa -- had access to anti-retroviral treatment in 2005 to prevent them from passing the virus to their babies."You have to ask yourself, is there not enough prioritization of women and children?" Dr. De Cock said.