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UNITED NATIONS, Oct 25 (Reuters): Every minute of every day a child dies of AIDS but only 5.0 per cent of those infected have access to life-preserving drugs, UNICEF, the U.N. Children's Fund, said on Tuesday in launching a new campaign.
Appealing for more funds for children with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, Ann Veneman, executive director of UNICEF, hoped the world would spend $33 billion over the next five years from existing commitments and additional funds.
"Nearly 25 years into the pandemic, this very visible disease continues to have an invisible face and that is the face of the child," Veneman told a news conference on the eve of the campaign, "Unite for Children, Unite Against AIDS."
"A whole generation of young people today has never known a world free of HIV and AIDS," she said. "It is a disease that has redefined their childhood forcing them to grow up alone too fast, or sadly sometimes not at all.
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