SIC News | Every three minutes a girl has been infected with AIDS in 2017

Entitled "Women: At the Heart of the HIV Response for Children", this is UNICEF's latest AIDS report held Wednesday in Amsterdam, where an international AIDS conference is being held . UNICEF believes that the inability to reach these young people slows the progress made in the world in recent decades in the fight against the epidemic.

UNICEF Executive Director Henrietta Fore says the numbers indicate "and in most countries, women and girls do not have access to information, services and services. or even the power to say "no" to unprotected sex. "

.] According to the figures in the report, only 130,000 children and adolescents aged 19 and under died last year, while 430 000 were infected

The paper states that adolescents between 10 and 19 years old Almost two-thirds of the three million children and young people (aged 0 to 19) living with HIV point out that number of deaths decreased in all age groups, less among 15-19 years.

Spread of the epidemic among girls, says UNICEF, is motivated by the practice early sexual intercourse, forced sex, "inability to have a voice in issues and lack of access to counseling and

UNICEF, with the United Nations AIDS Agency, UNAIDS and other partners, has launched initiatives for teens, one aimed at young people in 25 countries with more cases of infections and another aimed at reducing the number of new infections.

These and other initiatives have led to "a significant success in preventing mother-to-child transmission of HIV," notes the report, The Number of New Infections in Children from 0 to 4 years decreased by a third between 2010 and 2017.

Four out of five pregnant women living with HIV now have access to treatment. In the Southern African region, for a long time in the most affected areas, Botswana and South Africa now have mother-to-child transmission rates of only 5% and more than 90% of HIV-positive women are treated

Lusa