HIV drugs for children in Africa

I came across this news item on the BBC website. It refers to a report from a coalition of groups, including World Vision. I'm posting this as there has been interest in the topic in previous posts on this blog. The news item says in part that:

The Global Movement for Children said that, in June 2005, around four million children were in need of cotrimoxazole, an antibiotic costing 3 US cents per day per child, which prevents life-threatening infections in HIV infected children and infants born to HIV-positive mothers.

It can also delay the onset of Aids and the need for anti-retroviral therapy.

It adds that 90% of HIV-positive children are infected by a failure to prevent mother-to-child transmission.

The report says providing a mother with comprehensive care can reduce the risk of transmission to less than 2%.

But under 10% of HIV-positive pregnant women currently receive the necessary drugs.

The report makes a series of recommendations including the development of simple and affordable diagnostic tests, more research and development for child specific treatment and improvements to health-care systems in developing countries to make it easier to get medication to children.

The rest of the news item can be found here

The part that struck me is again the low cost of doing the right thing! Thoughts?