Childhood HIV is in danger of becoming a neglected disease, say experts

The success in reducing the number of children born with HIV is in danger of leaving children who already have the disease with poor access to treatment, experts in HIV and AIDS have warned.

Denis Broun, executive director of Unitaid, a not for profit organisation that purchases drugs for the treatment of HIV and AIDS and other diseases, has welcomed news that the number of new infections in children is falling. But he said that because fewer children are born with the virus, drug companies would no longer have an incentive to manufacture treatments and that childhood HIV might become a neglected disease.

A report by UNAIDS, the joint United Nations programme on HIV and AIDS, released a week before world AIDS day on 1 December, said that the …