as part of my commitment to run the royal parks half marathon, on behalf of unicef’s “born free” mission, i’ll be doing a weekly series here to publicise why i feel so strongly that this intiative deserves your support. please consider sponsoring me at my justgiving page, or simply click the widget in my sidebar. a big thank you for anything you can contribute.

born free: unite for children, unite against aids

i’ve been incredibly busy lately, and not had much time to blog. but with only 3 weeks left, and only 50% of the way to my fundraising goal, i need help. if you’ve thought about donating before, but haven’t yet, please consider it again now! if you haven’t considered it before, let me tell you why your help is so important.

when i last left off on this topic, i wrote about how out of the people living in sub-saharan africa only 9% of hiv positive women, get the antiretrovirals that can prevent transmission to their babies.

yet in the u.s. and europe, small children dying of aids is nearly unheard of now. in these areas, mother-to-child transmission rates are less than 1%. this is because with access to proper healthcare and medication, 98% of hiv positive mothers *do not* pass on the hiv virus to their newborn babies. we are so lucky to live in countries where mothers can protect their newborn children from becoming statistics.

the picture in the poorest countries is much more dire. the kind of rampant devastation this disease is wreaking on the vulnerable and poor is truly awful, even just in words. that innocent children are suffering in such numbers from something so preventable, is just unfathomable.

– in 2007, there were 2.1 million children with hiv, and 90% of those live in sub-saharan africa.

– in 2007 alone, almost half a million children were infected with hiv and did not receive care or treatment.

– mother-to-baby transmission accounts for over 90% of hiv in children.

– 50% of these children will die before the age of 2, and most are dead before they reach the ripe old age of 5.

– every minute of every day, a baby is born with hiv, and a child dies of hiv-related causes

**but this is preventable!** testing and medications can save babies from a death sentence.

just 68p will buy antiretrovirals for a mother and baby at birth. (that’s just over a dollar at today’s exhange rate!) think about how much good your donation can do for these children – if they only get the chance to be born free of hiv, they can go on to live long and healthy lives, instead of likely dead by five years old.

such a small amount can make such a life and death difference. so won’t you consider giving, even a pound/dollar or two?

(in my next posting, i’ll be talking about other aspects of preventing mother-to-child transmission, and the impact hiv has on babies’ and children’s lives.)

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