UN and US launch campaign to eliminate inherited HIV

UN and US launch campaign to eliminateinherited HIV The UN and the US government have launched an initiative toeliminate HIV among babies by 2015.The UN says a baby is born with HIV nearly every minute, almost allof them in sub-Saharan Africa.The new campaign will aim to treat HIV-positive pregnant women,cutting infection among their babies to less than 5%.It will cost an estimated $2.5bn (£1.5bn) to care for 15 millionwomen, double those currently being treated.The plan, called Countdown to Zero, was developed by a team led byUNAids and the US President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief.A key element of the campaign is to ensure that all women, especiallypregnant ones, have access to quality life-saving HIV prevention andtreatment services - for themselves and their children.In 2009, an estimated 370,000 children were infected at birth withHIV, almost all in low- and middle-income countries, and chiefly insub-Saharan Africa."We are here today to ensure that all children are born healthy andfree of disease. We are here to ensure that their mothers live to seethem grow," UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said at the launch ofthe plan."We believe that by 2015 children everywhere can be born free of HIVand that their mothers can remain healthy," said Michel Sidibe,executive director of UNAids."This new global plan is realistic, it is achievable and it is driven bythe most affected countries."Achieving the goal could be "the beginning of the end of the story,because that opens the prospect for an Aids-free generation," saidMichel Kazatchkine, head of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS,Tuberculosis and Malaria. UN and US launch campaign to eliminateinherited HIV