#news : AIDS-free Generation "Achievable": UN

Photo taken on November 30 shows students from a primary school in Dexing, Central China's Jiangxi Province observing the World AIDS Day on December 1. [Photo: Chinanews.com]

The UN Children's Fund ( UNICEF) on Tuesday said achieving an AIDS-free generation is possible if the international community escalates its efforts to provide universal access to HIV prevention, treatment and social protection to those in need.

In a report titled "Children and AIDS: Fifth Stocktaking Report 2010," UNICEF said achieving the goal of a generation without AIDS will depend largely on reaching the most marginalized members of society.

The report's release coincides with World AIDS Day, which is set to be observed on Dec. 1. AIDS is a disease of the human immune system and marks the final and most serious stage of HIV.

According to Michel Sidibe, executive director of the Join UN Program on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), around 370,000 children are born with HIV each year. Without treatment, about 50 percent of the infants infected with HIV die before their second birthday.

"We have to stop mothers from dying and babies from becoming infected with HIV. That is why I have called for the virtual elimination of mother to child transmission by 2015," said Sidibe in a press release.

Young women under the age of 25 remain the most vulnerable to HIV infection throughout the world, according to UNICEF. Worldwide, over 60 percent of all young people living with HIV are female. In sub-Saharan Africa that figure is close to 70 percent.

Executive Director of the UN Population Fund Thoraya Ahmed Obaid said in a press release that "we must increase investments in young people's education and health, including sexual and reproductive health, to prevent HIB infections and advance social protection."

"Reaching marginalized young people, including vulnerable adolescent girls and those who are not in school, must remain a priority," she added.

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