Victoria Beckham campaigning for Aids education in South Africa

14 October 2014 - 14:22 By TimesLIVE
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Fashion designer has stopped in Soweto and in Limpopo

Beckham visited Soweto on Sunday and yesterday in Limpopo, she was welcomed to the Ramokgopa Clinic by the Mothers to Mothers HIV treatment programme, where the staff tweeted "Lots of smiles & very happy to have our friend Victoria Beckhamwith us".

The mother of four is promoting HIV-Aids prevention, after being appointed last month as an international goodwill ambassador for the United Nations Programme on HIV/Aids (UNAids).

She has pledged to work towards ensuring that all children are born free from HIV and that children and women who are living with and affected by HIV have access to medicines and care.

"As a woman and a mother, I have a responsibility to support other women," David Beckham's famous wife said in a statement on her UN role.

Her interest was partly sparked by a visit to Cape Town in February this year, when she visited HIV clinics in the Mother City, where she learned about the importance of anti-retroviral therapy and about how children are being left behind in accessing treatment, the UN said.

Anti-retroviral therapy can reduce the risk of a mother living with HIV passing the virus to her child to below 5%.

However, the UN said, in 2013, one third of pregnant women living with HIV did not have access to the life-saving medicines and 240 000 children became infected with HIV.

In 2013, less than half of all children who were exposed to HIV were tested for the virus within the optimum three-month period and only 24% had access to life-saving treatment.

"Without treatment, half of all children born with HIV will die by the age of two and the majority will die by the age of five," the world body stated.

Over the past five years providing access to anti-retroviral medicines for pregnant women living with HIV has helped 900 000 children to be born free from HIV.

 

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