Children forgotten in AIDS treatment

Children in Uganda have been marginalised in the provision of HIV/AIDS treatment and many lives may be lost unless urgent efforts are made to address the issue, paediatricians have warned. Research shows that some 50,000 of an estimated 150,000 HIV-positive children are in need of anti-AIDS medication. Dr Philippa Musoke, a paediatric medicines lecturer at the Makerere University Medical School in the capital, Kampala, was quoted by a local newspaper, New Vision, as saying, "Definitely fewer than 2,000 [children] are now on antiretroviral treatment. Often it is the man first, then the woman, and lastly children." The international health NGO, Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF), recently noted that the failure by manufacturers to adapt diagnostic HIV/AIDS tests and drugs for paediatric use was hampering the treatment of HIV-positive youngsters in developing countries.