The dramatic reductions - in Botswana, Ethiopia, Ghana, Malawi, Namibia, South Africa and Zambia - mean tens of thousands more babies are now being born free of HIV, UNAIDS said in a report on its Global Plan to tackle the disease in around 20 of the worst affected countries.Overall, across 21 priority countries in Africa, there were 130,000 fewer new HIV infections among children in 2012 - a drop of 38 percent since 2009 - mostly due to increased drug treatment of pregnant women with the virus."The progress in the majority of countries is a strong signal that with focused efforts every child can be born free from HIV," said Michel Sidib, UNAIDS' executive director.
"But progress has stalled in some countries with high numbers of new HIV infections. We need to find out why and remove the bottlenecks which are preventing scale-up."Among places causing concern, UNAIDS said, are Angola and Nigeria, where new infections in children have increased and remained unchanged respectively since 2009.Nigeria has the largest number of children acquiring HIV in the region, with nearly 60,000 new infections in 2012.
