Paediatric HIV infection

Abstract

The number of children living with HIV has increased from 1.5 million to 2.5 million since 2001, with over 90% living in resource-poor countries. In the last 2 years, however, the rates of new infections and mortality due to AIDS have started to decrease. This is in part due to the implementation of strategies to prevent mother-to-child transmission during pregnancy, delivery and breast-feeding. In addition, programmes providing children with highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) have been successfully introduced in many countries around the world. Recent studies have shown that starting all children on HAART under the age of 12 months significantly reduces mortality. However, lack of..