Dar es Salaam - Today, twelve (12) African countries of the Global Alliance to End AIDS in children announced their commitments and plans to end AIDS among children in the first Ministerial Conference of the Alliance since its announcement at the International AIDS Conference in Montreal, Canada in August 2022.

The event was also an official launch of the eight—year alliance that is motivated by the inequality in access and quality of service among children compared to adults living with HIV.

“The launch of this alliance on the African continent is not a coincidence. It reflects a fact that 80 percent of the children living with AIDS are on the continent,” said the Director of WHO in the African Region, Dr. Mathsidiso Moeti.

Twelve countries with high HIV vertical transmission rates have joined the alliance in the first phase: Angola, Cameroon, Côte d'Ivoire, The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Kenya, Mozambique, Nigeria, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.  It is expected that more countries will join the alliance in phases.

Officiating the launch of the alliance, the Vice President of Tanzania, Dr. Philip Mpango commended the commitments of the countries made to end AIDS among children by 2023.  “Integrated, inclusive and multisectoral approaches are needed to address barriers to healthy lives for women and children,” he said.

The commitment announced by the twelve countries span a broad range including more financial investment from local resources, more decisive involvement of communities to improving access to new technologies. Ministers of Health from the twelve countries presented their commitment in person or virtually. The country commitments reflected country contexts as they aligned with the four pillars of the alliance namely:

• Early testing and optimized comprehensive, high quality treatment and care for infants, children, and adolescents living with and children exposed to HIV
• Closing the treatment gap for pregnant and breastfeeding women living with HIV and optimizing continuity of treatment towards the goal of elimination of vertical transmission
• Preventing and detecting new HIV infections among pregnant and breastfeeding adolescents and women
• Addressing rights, gender equality and the social and structural barriers that hinder access to services

The commitments answered to the observed reasons that results in less than optimum case detection, enrollment  in care and viral suppression among children and adolescents living with HIV.

Addressing the launch event virtually, the Director General of WHO, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus emphasized that states, development partners and international organization each have a role to play to revitalize the stalled progress in ending AIDS.

“We have eight years and all the tools needed to make this a (end AIDS) reality. We need to think, and act differently and also prioritize our strategies to address the glaring gap in children.” said Dr. Tedros.

“We need to think, and act differently and also prioritize our strategies to address the glaring gap in children”.

Evoking her experience 14 years ago—having two AIDS free children despite her being infected with HIV — Ms. Lilian Lillian Mworeko, Chairperson of the International Community of Women living with HIV and AIDS highlighted the fact that children are still being born with HIV despite the current advances in medicine and technology.

The low rates of testing, inadequate treatment coverage and retention rate (to care) among children which lead to poor treatment outcome are not acceptable because we have the capacity, the knowledge and technology to redress the situation,” said the WHO regional Director for Africa Dr. Mathsidiso Moeti.

The Chief Executive Officer and Director the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation, Mr. Chip Lyons, underlined that it was important for programs and advocacy for ending AIDS among children to think and act differently, citing data as one of the area in need of reimagination.

“We need reliable data to make decisions but, in most cases, surveys do not include 0—14 aged children,” he noted.

In addition to the United Nations agencies—WHO, UNICEF and UNAIDS—the alliance includes civil society movements, including the Global Network of People living with HIV, national governments in the most affected countries, and international partners, including PEPFAR and the Global Fund.

The Alliance will measure progress towards the bold targets of the SDGs and focus on the priority actions for children defined in the new Global AIDS Strategy 2021-2026. Furthermore, it will seek to apply the lessons learned from the Global Plan and the Start Free, Stay Free, AIDS Free Partnership (3-Frees) framework to amplify what worked and avoid some of the pitfalls of past initiatives.