Prevention and care should not compete for scarce resources. What about impact mitigation?

[him] moderator

++++++++++++++++++

Children with HIV need more help, says UNICEF official
Share
By Yamon Phu Thit
Volume 32, No. 630
June 11 - 17, 2012

MORE funding and greater efforts are needed to fight HIV in Myanmar, especially among children, a senior official from the United Nations Children’s Fund, said last month.

The chief of the HIV/AIDS section at UNICEF’s headquarters in New York, Mr Craig McClure, said social protection programs should be established to provide help for children and families living with HIV.

“Social protection is about supporting parents to have access to treatment and supporting orphans to keep them in school or to educate them about HIV and to provide them economic support services,” Mr McClure told a news conference at Traders Hotel on May 30.

Social protection would help to ensure that children living with HIV grew up happily and healthily, he said.

Mr Clure said UNICEF also wants to work with the Myanmar government to implement the social protection programs to help the most vulnerable children and families.

“At this exciting time of changes in Myanmar, one of the important things we want to do is to work with the government to implement social protection programs that help children and families who are most in need,” Mr McClure said.

UNICEF’s efforts to fight HIV in Myanmar focus on three areas: children, adolescents and families that have a high risk of HIV infection, are living with HIV infection, or are affected by the disease.

Mr McClure said getting sufficient funding for these programs was still a challenge.

“We need more money from donors outside of Myanmar and also a greater contribution from the government for scaling up the HIV programs,” he said.

Mr David Alnwick, regional adviser of UNICEF’s HIV section at the UN’s East Asia and Pacific regional office in Bangkok, told the news conference that HIV care, prevention and treatment services in Myanmar was still weak compared with other ASEAN countries.

“Myanmar is not working the best among ASEAN countries in prevention. A lot of good works have been done in prevention but more needs to be done,” he said.

UNICEF figures show there are about 240,000 people living with HIV in Myanmar, of whom almost two-thirds are aged under 34.

http://www.mmtimes.com/2012/news/630/news63007.html