Annie Lennox in call to halt HIV transmission to babies

FORMER EURYTHMICS singer Annie Lennox has said the world should commit itself to eliminating the transmission of the HIV virus from mothers to their babies within five years.

Lennox, who became Aids ambassador for the UN last month, said it was an ambitious goal, but one that could be achieved by 2015 if the will was there to achieve it.

Currently 400,000 children are born HIV-positive every year, though transmission can be relatively easily stopped using antiretroviral (AZT) drugs.

“It can be achieved with political will. Every mother and the child has the right to good nutrition and good medical care,” she said. The singer was one of the star speakers at the TEDGlobal (technology, entertainment design) conference in Oxford yesterday. She performed a medley of some of her best-known songs at the conference on Tuesday.

Lennox told delegates she was moved to get involved in the fight in sub-Saharan Africa through her involvement with a series of concerts dedicated to Nelson Mandela.

“When I left Cape Town, I said that this was something which I had to talk about. If I went out into the street and told people what was happening they would be shocked,” she told the delegates.

Lennox says she wears an Aids T-shirt to show that she is in solidarity with people with HIV.

“Because of the stigma, by wearing this T-shirt, we can talk about it,” she said.

Harvard’s Dr Mitchell Besser said it was a myth that pregnant women with HIV automatically passed the virus on to their children. Only 2 per cent of mothers in the developed world pass on the virus because of the use of antiretroviral medicines, yet the incidences in the developed world is closer to 40 per cent.

He is the founder of mothers2mothers, a mentoring group for mothers with HIV.

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