CIVICUS calls for care on World AIDS Day 
By Kumi Naidoo, CIVICUS Secretary-General

Every year on 1st December people across the world gather to commemorate those who have died from HIV/AIDs, and to support those who are living with the disease. Every year people have to be reminded that sub-Saharan Africa , with only 10% of the world's population, is home to 60% of the people who are living with HIV/AIDs. 25.8 million people in sub-Saharan Africa are living with the disease.  

It is often said that HIV/AIDs has a woman's face, and that is true. Women suffer disproportionately because of the disease. But it is often forgotten that HIV/AIDs in Africa also has the face of a child. Each year in sub-Saharan Africa , 640,000 children are infected with HIV. Without treatment, half of them will die before their second birthday. Nearly 90% of new child HIV infections across the world occur in sub-Saharan Africa . These children are infected because their mothers have the disease. 

Access to tailored paediatric drugs is a major obstacle in the protection of children. To put it bluntly, children in sub-Saharan Africa do not have that access. One drug alone - cotrimoxazole - can nearly halve the number of children who die from HIV/AIDs.  But only 1% of children who need it have access to the drug. 

And when the parents die the children are orphaned and many of them have to fend for themselves. 

But the situation is not beyond hope.   It is up to us to campaign to ensure that the world makes adequate funds available to the Global Fund to combat HIV/AIDs, malaria and tuberculosis. We have to hold leaders like George Bush, Angela Merkel and Gordon Brown to their promises. We have to make the rich countries of the world aware of their obligations to these children. We can do this.   

I am a South African. We were told time and again that we could not overthrow apartheid. But we did. HIV/AIDs is another struggle which we cannot lose, which we must not lose. With sustained international action we will not fail. 

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