HIV/AIDS batters children and adolescents …

Earlier this year, Belize’s health sector celebrated a significant milestone when no maternal or infant death was recorded in the first half of 2008. But according to the organisers of a two-day technical meeting being held in Belize City, there is an urgent need to bridge the gap in services for children and adolescents, especially in relation to HIV/AIDS.

Rana Flowers, Country Rep., UNICEF
“Children are missing from our response and so this meeting is really saying, okay, this is not acceptable because children are ten percent of those being infected and it is adolescents and adolescent girls in particular that are leading the infection. So we really need to focus on this age group and see what’s happening in this age group.”

Peter Eden Martinez, Minister of Human Development
“The Ministry of Health has its primary task to address mother to child transmission; that it is always trying to improve. Free anti-retroviral are available and we know that more and more children and adolescents are accessing these services. The Department of Human Services is providing care for orphans and infected children who have become wards of the state as their extended families have been unable to cope. They are also supporting a number of other extended families to keep their young members within their care but truly, the attempts to respond to the needs of this population of children in a holistic way and through the lifecycle has been led by the N.G.O. community. Yes, some really good things have happened and continue to happen, but they are either happening on two small a scale or in silos and there are definitely some large gaps in services.”

Adele Catzim-Sanchez, Consultant
“We need to incorporate the needs of the HIV adolescent because that is a population that has been invisible in the whole national response. We also need to look at how do we develop a better continuum of care for children who are HIV positive after they turn five because currently the system does not allow for a smooth transition for those children out of the maternal and child health programme intro the regular health system. We need to look more at how we maximise the resources that we do have. It is also true that we need to mobilise additional resources, but at the same time if we improve our coordination, our networking, the effectiveness in managing what we have, then we are going to go a long way in making the response more meet the needs of people who are HIV positive.”