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File Photo: A man walks past a camel in front of a sand sculpture made by Indian sand artist Sudarshan Patnaik to raise public awareness of AIDS as World AIDS Day approaches on a Puri beach , in the state of Odisha, in east India, 29 November 2013. (Xinhua / REUTERS)
United Nations, Nov. 29 (Xinhua) – About 80 teenagers will die of AIDS every day by 2030 if "we do not accelerate progress in preventing transmission," said Thursday at the head of the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) United Nations (UNICEF). .
In a report published Thursday in Children, HIV and AIDS: The World in 2030, current trends indicate that AIDS-related deaths and new infections are slowing down, but that the downward trajectory is not happening fast enough.
"The report clearly indicates, without a shadow of a doubt, that the world is not on the right track to end AIDS in children and adolescents by 2030" , said UNICEF Chief Henrietta Fore.
The end of AIDS is an ambitious goal envisioned by the coalition of United Nations agencies created to fight the epidemic, known as the UNAIDS Acceleration Strategy.
The report reveals that more than half of all children dying of AIDS will not have reached the age of five.
We noted that efforts to prevent and treat infections were still lacking, particularly with regard to "mother-to-child HIV transmission".
"Programs to treat the virus and prevent it from spreading to older children are nowhere else," she added.
The number of mother-to-child infections has decreased by about 40% in the last eight years, but girls still account for two-thirds of all HIV infections among adolescents, and infection rates among older children are those who recede more slowly, according to the report. current data.
In addition, the report cites a global goal of reducing the number of HIV-infected children by 2030 to 1.4 million, indicating that the projected number of 1.9 million today shows that the world has lost about 500,000 people.
Currently, 3 million people aged 19 and under are infected with HIV worldwide.
Two million new infections could be prevented by 2030 if global goals are achieved – that is, adequate access to HIV prevention, care and treatment services, as well as screening and diagnosis .
The main gaps are the slow progress in prevention among young people and the inability to tackle the main factors of the epidemic. Many infected children and adolescents are unaware of their condition and, even if they are HIV positive, rarely adhere to appropriate treatment.
UNICEF's vision for an AIDS-free generation is to scale up family-based testing to identify children living with HIV who have not been diagnosed and to make greater use of digital platforms to improve their lives. education on HIV prevention and contraction.
"We can not win the fight against HIV if we do not accelerate progress in preventing transmission to the next generation," Fore said.
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