The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) said here Saturday that more than 600,000 children around the world would be infected with HIV/AIDS yearly.

UNICEF Executive Director Ann Veneman disclosed this at a joint partnership forum held in Nigeria's capital Abuja by the UNICEF and the World Health Organization (WHO) to plan the way forward in the worst affected countries including Nigeria, the most populous African country with a population of some 138 million.

However, she added, "the number of children who become positive every year could be less if pregnant women living with the virus received comprehensive services including anti-retro viral drugs."

According to Veneman, hundreds of thousands of children are " needlessly" born with HIV every year and many of them die in their first year, yet effective interventions exist.

She noted that the number of children infected could be drastically reduced through the provision of good services to the expectant mothers.

She further noted that aid from donor governments had increased significantly in recent years but that children were yet to benefit immensely from such aid.

According to Veneman, one key recommendation to governments will be to earmark AIDS funding specially for programs aimed at children.

She called on all partners including WHO to provide greater access to preventive services for pregnant women living with HIV.

Veneman also expressed optimism on the ongoing 14th International Conference on HIV/AIDS and STIs in Africa (ICASA).

She said it would jump-start efforts towards the achievement of the global target of 80 percent of pregnant women receiving services by 2010.

Source: Xinhua