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In 2007, an estimated 2 million children were living with HIV — eight times more than in 1990. This sad fact was reported by Linda Richter in her plenary presentation to the XVIIth International AIDS Conference in México City on August 6, 2008. She went on to relate these additional sad facts...

• HIV prevention is failing children. The overwhelming majority of children who are HIV-positive are infected through mother-to-child transmission. Though their effectiveness is proven, interventions to prevent mother-to-child transmission are not reaching enough of those who need them.


• Children living with HIV have far less access to treatment than do adults in the same settings. Globally, only about 10% of children living with HIV received antiretroviral treatment last year.


• It is not only orphaned children who are affected by HIV/AIDS. Orphans are only the tip of the iceberg of vulnerable children. In HIV-affected communities, where there is also extreme poverty and deprivation, orphans are seldom worse off than other vulnerable children.


• Families are on their own. Families, extended kin, and communities — many living in extreme poverty — are largely left to support affected children with little or no funding or assistance from governments. It is estimated that fewer than 15% of households supporting children orphaned or made vulnerable by HIV and AIDS are reached in either community-based or public sector support programs.

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One of the projects of the World Forum Foundation, Visions of Hope, brings together community-based programs from around the world to share ideas on how to increase their effectiveness. Members of this group will share their stories, their challenges, and their dreams at the World Forum on Early Care and Education in Belfast, Northern Ireland on June 16 - 19, 2009. If you register for the World Forum by December 31, you can take advantage of the discounted Early Bird registration rate.

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