A pediatric AIDS corps will be created to send up to 250 doctors to Africa to treat approximately 80,000 children over the next five years and to train local health care professionals. In addition four new children’s clinical centers of excellence will be built as part of a $40 million program funded by the two organizations.
Separately, Bristol-Myers Squibb announced it is also reducing the price of pediatric formulations of HIV medicines in the world’s least developed countries to expand access to treatment.
“This groundbreaking program addresses all the major barriers to treatment of HIV-infected children in Africa,” said Dr Mark Kline, professor of pediatrics at Baylor College of Medicine, and director, Baylor International Pediatric AIDS Initiative.
“Fewer than one percent of the estimated 2.2 million children living globally with AIDS are being treated. The trilateral initiative we are announcing makes it possible to treat huge numbers of HIV-infected children across Africa, changing forever the way pediatric HIV/AIDS is perceived and managed.”