Rays of Hope for Africa's AIDS Children

Natasha is seen at Bowy House, a home for orphans and sick children, in Paarl, near Cape Town, South Africa, Thursday, June 14, 2007. Natasha is testimony to the success of anti-retroviral medicines in transforming AIDS from a certain death sentence for infants and young children to a manageable disease, providing a glimmer of hope on a continent of gloom. (AP Photo/Obed Zilwa) (Obed Zilwa - AP)

The South African government, long criticized for doing too little, now has the world's biggest treatment program, and children are a focal point of a five-year AIDS program unveiled in May. Authorities have also vowed to step up prevention programs to stop fetuses being infected. Other governments such as Zambia, Malawi and Botswana are also giving more priority to children.

UNAIDS and the U.N. Children's Fund say 2.3 million children in sub-Saharan Africa are HIV-positive, most of them infected by their mothers because they did not receive drugs taken for granted in wealthy countries to prevent transmission of the virus.

Globally, an estimated 530,000 children were newly infected last year and 380,000 died of AIDS, the vast majority in Africa. Without treatment, half of infected infants die before age 2.

Throughout southern Africa, child mortality rates have soared because of AIDS, reversing health gains from better sanitation and immunization even in relatively prosperous countries such as Botswana and South Africa.

When Natasha arrived at Bowy House, aged nine months, she had twig-thin limbs, protruding ribs and a balding head. Photographs taken only three months later show her restored to health, celebrating her first birthday with her parents and a pink-and-green cake decorated with fairies.

Her photo album gives snapshots of the many small signs of progress across southern Africa. Lower drug prices, easier diagnosis, and better training of health workers augur a dramatic increase in the numbers of lives that will be saved. And government efforts are being boosted by the Clinton Foundation, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, U.N. money and President Bush's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief.

There are a whole host of other programs. For instance, backed by funding from drug companies, the Texas-based Baylor College of Medicine has an acclaimed pediatric AIDS initiative with children's clinics in some of the most ravaged countries.

In Botswana, more than 3,800 children are receiving care and treatment at clinics affiliated with the Baylor initiative, including its flagship hospital in the capital, Gaborone. The aim is also to assign foreign physicians and nurses to ease debilitating staff shortages and train local health workers.

Other poor African countries are taking heart. For instance, the Zambian government has shifted its priority from purely high-risk adults to getting treatment to more children.

"The most significant success we have now is that we have a recognition that this is a priority area," said Albert Mwango, AIDS medical coordinator at Zambia's health ministry.

Eric Goemaere, the head of Medecins Sans Frontieres in South Africa, blames lack of political will for past inaction, because child AIDS wasn't a problem in North America and Europe and drug companies had little financial incentive to develop a child-friendly therapy.

In 2005, 57 children in the U.S. were infected by their mothers. In the impoverished Cape Town slum of Khayelitsha alone _ home to some 500,000 people _ it was three times as high, according to Goemaere.