Materials and Links

Background:

There were an estimated 2.5 million children living with HIV/AIDS in 2003 and an estimated 700,000 newly infected children under the age of 15 that same year. Almost 90% of these children live in sub-Saharan Africa. Although children represent about six percent of the global epidemic, they account for 17% of the deaths due to HIV/AIDS. Furthermore, 50% of children with HIV/AIDS die before the age of two. This is in part due to a lack of availability of pediatric formulations of antiretroviral therapies in the resource-limited setting. In the developed world, few children are born with HIV/AIDS due to the success of preventing mother to child transmission strategies and those that are born with HIV generally have access to the few pediatric formulations that are available. These pediatric formulations are generally not available in the resource-limited setting.

The lack of pediatric formulations of antiretroviral therapies in the resource-limited setting makes administering the correct dose extremely difficult. Most healthcare providers cut and crush adult formulations to administer to children and it is not known if there is equal distribution of drug in a tablet. As a result, children may be given too high a dose thereby increasing the risk for side effects or receiving too low a dose and increasing the risk for drug resistance.

Objectives:

To bring together researchers and clinicians, pharmacologists, government representatives, community representatives, pharmaceutical representatives and other leaders with the goal of breaking down the barriers to the development of pediatric formulations of antiretroviral therapies and to initiate the discussion on developing standardized dosing for children.

Status:

The workshop was held in collaboration with the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation and was held on April 28th in Quebec City, Canada. A meeting report will be available shortly.

The Steering Committee for this project includes:

David Burger - University Medical Centre, Nijmegen, The Netherlands
Ben Cheng - Forum for Collaborative HIV Research, USA
Polly Clayden – HIV i-Base, London, UK
Mark Cotton – Stellenbosch University, South Africa
Siobhan Crowley – WHO, Geneva, Switzerland
Courtney Fletcher – University of Colorado, USA
Di Gibb – MRC, London, UK
Richard Hoetelmans – Tibotec, Belgium
Sandra Lehrman – NIAID, NIH, USA
Veronica Miller - Forum for Collaborative HIV Research, USA
Lynne Mofenson – NICHD, NIH, USA
Sipho Mthathi – Treatment Action Campaign, South Africa
Jeff Safrit – Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation, USA
Steve Spector – University of California, San Diego, USA