XVII International AIDS Conference in Mexico City
3-8 August 2008
Maternal, newborn and child health in focus
3 August 2008, Geneva - Over twenty two thousand scientists, community and political leaders from around the world are gathered at the XVII International AIDS Conference in Mexico City from 3 to 8 August, urging universal action to end AIDS globally.
The 2008 Mexico AIDS conference is expected to examine progress towards scaling up of treatment and prevention programmes, highlighting themes such as human rights, gender issues and the need for stronger health systems.
HIV/AIDS is a major burden for maternal, newborn and child health. Every day, 1000 children become newly infected with HIV. Around 17.5 million women and children are living with HIV, according to WHO and UNAIDS 2007 updates. Of these, 2 million are children under 15 years of age, 90% of whom live in sub-Saharan Africa.
Progress is being made in preventing mother-to -child transmission of HIV, with 23% of women having access to prevention services in 2006, compared with 10% in 2004. Nonetheless, these services are still inaccessible for the vast majority of pregnant women. Only 1 out of 25 children receives antibiotics to prevent them from HIV-related opportunistic infections.
Dr Francisco Songane, Director of the Partnership for Maternal, Newborn & Child Health will participate in a Special Session on "Strengthening Health Systems through the AIDS Response" on 7 August. The Mexico 2008 Conference includes a number of sessions on maternal, newborn, child health issues and HIV/AIDS., including:
3 August
Scaling up Comprehensive Prevention of Mother-to-child Transmission Programmes: Challenges and Lessons Learned from Adapting Global Recommendations to Country Situation, Elizabeth Glazer Pediatric AIDS Foundation
3 August
Scaling up Comprehensive PMTCT Programmes: Challenges and Lessons Learned from Adapting Global Recommendations to Country Situation, WHO, UNICEF and the Inter-Agency task Team on Prevention of HIV Infection among Pregnant Women, Mothers and their Children
3 August
Challenges for Women and Girls and HIV/AIDS, International AIDS Women's Caucas
4 August
Keeping the Promise: Unite for Children, Unite against HIV/AIDS, UNICEF, WHO, WFP, UNFPA and UNAIDS
6 August
Beyond the Orphan Crisis: Findings of the Joint Learning Initiative on Children and HIV/AIDS, Joint Learning Initiative on Children and HIV/AIDS (JLICA)
7 August
The Strengthening of Health Systems Through the AIDS Response
Related links
- Global public health goals thwarted by human rights violations, gender inequality and stigma, Press release 8 August 2008
- Follow the Mexico 2008 conference
- Access audio, video and text transcripts of featured sessions
- Partners, please send us your news from the XVII International AIDS Conference
- For member news from the Conference, see our section "Partners and MNCH News"