Save the Children UK has derided the amount of aid being committed from international donors to help children affected by HIV and AIDS as 'pitiful'.

Save the Children has found that only a quarter of the money needed to help children affected by HIV and AIDS has actually been committed. Yet it's unclear how even that small amount of aid will actually reach children living with HIV and AIDS and where the outstanding aid will come from.

Children suffer disproportionately from the HIV and AIDS pandemic. Children under the age of 15 account for nearly 1,800 new HIV infections and 1,400 deaths daily, while an estimated 25 million will have been orphaned by the virus by 2010.

Gopa Kumar Nair, Save the Children's HIV and AIDS Adviser, said: "Children are bearing the brunt of the HIV and AIDS pandemic, millions have and will continue to be orphaned or contract the virus themselves - yet they receive a pitiful amount of aid.

"Children who have contracted HIV need specific medical treatment such as drugs that can be easily administered to them, that their families can afford. Those who have lost parents to the virus or are looking after their sick parents need to be cared for, so they can still go to school and have a future. None of this can happen until the amount of aid specifically targeted at children is dramatically increased."

Save the Children's analysis of child-specific HIV and AIDS spending targets has revealed that:

• The UN has estimated that a total of $1.6 billion is needed to provide support to children affected by HIV and AIDS in 2006. The money that the UK, US and Ireland have committed amounts to 25 per cent of that. It is unclear where the rest of the 75% will come from. Other G8 countries must follow suit and increase budgets for HIV and AIDS.
• Only three donor governments - the UK, US and Ireland - have committed money specifically to help children affected by HIV and AIDS, despite the fact that children are suffering disproportionately from the pandemic.

Gopa Kumar Nair continued: "With this painfully slow progress to provide the necessary amount of aid to help children affected with HIV and AIDS we will be forever playing catch up as the pandemic continues to outpace the response. International donors must start being realistic about the amount of money they need to commit to provide affordable and appropriate treatment and help children orphaned by the virus."

Save the Children wants to see national Governments and the international community scale up universal access in order to ensure HIV and AIDS prevention, treatment, care and support will be properly targeted at children to help reverse the spread and curb the impact of the pandemic and to make the 2010 targets a reality.

Contact

For further information please contact Sophie Elmhirst on 0207 012 6403.

Notes to editors

• It's currently estimated that 2.3 million children are living with HIV.
• Fewer than 5% of HIV-positive children are receiving life saving anti-retroviral drugs - that's a long way from universal access.
• At the G8 summit in 2005, the target was set that access to HIV prevention, treatment and care should be available for all by 2010.

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