Bringing Global Child Health Issues to Capitol Hill
Posted by
Katie Lapides
Washington, D.C.
June 23, 2011
Last week, the Foundation brought the issue of pediatric AIDS to Capitol Hill as part of a Congressional Global Health Caucus briefing on global health and children.
Foundation Vice President for Program Innovation and Policy
Dr. RJ Simonds addresses a full room in the Rayburn Building
during the Congressional Global Health Caucus briefing on
global health and children. (Photo: EGPAF/Bob Yule)
The Foundation joined
World Vision,
Save the Children, and
CARE USA in a packed room to discuss child-focused global health programs. Congressional staffers from more than 25 offices learned about childhood diseases and health issues, and numerous success stories of U.S.-funded programs to keep children alive and healthy.
The U.S. Fund for UNICEF moderated the event, and began with background on why Congress should be involved in protecting the health of children globally. According to UNICEF, more than 22,000 children under the age of five die each day. The good news is that this alarmingly high number is one-third less than it was 10 years ago. The decrease is due in large part to the investments that countries like the United States are making in child health in resource-poor nations.
Most of the diseases and health issues that take a terrible toll on children can be prevented with simple tools and interventions often taken for granted in the developed world—such as clean water, simple bed nets, or access to lifesaving medicines.
For example, while we have medicines that can reduce the risk of a mother passing on HIV to her child to less than 5 percent, there are still 1,000 babies infected with HIV around the world each day.
Dr. RJ Simonds – the Foundation’s Vice President for Program Innovation and Policy – spoke at the briefing about how to bring that number down to almost zero. He stressed that we already have the tools needed to achieve this, and a proven track record of implementing them in resource-poor settings.
Simonds cited the example of the
U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), which has dramatically scaled up services to prevent mother-to-child transmission of HIV (PMTCT) – as well as HIV treatment for children, mothers, and families – over the past decade.
Dr. Simonds speaks about how to bring the number of children
newly infected with HIV from 1,000--where it is today--to zero.
(Photo: EGPAF/Bob Yule)
Because of the work of PEPFAR and other partners, the percentage of HIV-positive women who had access to PMTCT went from 15% in 2005, to 53% in 2009. And, not surprisingly, the number of children born with HIV each year has dropped accordingly.
Simonds also highlighted a new global plan for ending pediatric AIDS,
which was unveiled this month at the United Nations. Produced by UNAIDS and the U.S. Office of the Global AIDS Coordinator, which administer PEPFAR, the plan calls for ending new HIV infections in children by 2015. It also presents a roadmap to get there, including the political and financial commitments still needed.
This would have been an inconceivable goal twenty years ago, when
Elizabeth Glaser first brought attention to the issue of children and AIDS. Simonds told attendees how Elizabeth Glaser lobbied Congress for the pediatric drug research needed to save her daughter Ariel and son Jake from HIV in the 1980s. Although she and Ariel ultimately lost their battles with AIDS,
Elizabeth started a movement that has made pediatric HIV infections a rarity in the U.S. – and a foundation that now bears her name.
Simonds stressed that there are still many Elizabeths and many Ariels in the world – HIV-positive, pregnant or with small children, and with nowhere to turn. Through successful programs like PEPFAR, we are bringing HIV prevention and treatment to these mothers and children, and getting closer to ending pediatric HIV and AIDS once and for all.
Other presenters provided equally powerful information about important child health areas – newborn survival, childhood malaria, and early childhood development:
• Anne Pfitzer, Acting Director for the Saving Newborn Lives Program at Save the Children, discussed very simple, low-tech ways to keep newborns alive in developing areas, including: avoiding bathing the infant for at least the first 24 hours after birth, making sure the umbilical cord is dealt with correctly, and using exclusive breastfeeding.
• Geraldine Ryerson-Cruz, Senior Research & Policy Analyst for World Vision, discussed the toll that malaria can have on children. She reported that children under five make up 85% of malaria deaths each year. However, with education and low-cost, insecticide-treated bed nets, many of these infections and deaths can be prevented.
• Bethann Cottrell, Director of Child Health and Nutrition at CARE USA, spoke about early childhood survival. She described some of the conditions and outcomes faced by children in places like Kibera, an area of highly-concentrated poverty outside Nairobi, Kenya. These include death (one in ten African children die before the age of five), serious and recurrent illnesses, malnutrition, and life-long cognitive delay. CARE has instituted early childhood development centers and programs in Kibera and other sites to give at-risk children a healthy start.
Congressional staff walked away from the briefing with a fuller perspective of the child health programs supported by the U.S. – including those that address pediatric HIV, newborn survival, malnutrition, and malaria.
The speakers laid out the challenges that still exist for keeping children alive and healthy. But they also described the positive results of U.S. leadership on these issues, such as the momentum toward eliminating pediatric AIDS globally. In doing so, they made the case for why U.S. commitment should continue.
Katie Lapides is a Public Policy Officer for the Foundation, based in Washington, D.C.