With the availability of antiretroviral therapy (ART), HIV infection, which was once considered a progressively fatal illness, has now become a chronic treatable condition in children, as in adults. However, the challenges these children are forced to face are far more daunting. The most significant shortcoming in the response to paediatric HIV remains the woefully inadequate prevention of mother-to-child transmission (PMTCT), allowing a large number of children to be born with HIV in the first place, in spite of it being largely preventable. In the west, mother-to-child transmission has been virtually eliminated; however, in resource-limited settings where >95 per cent of all vertical transmissions take place, still an infected infants continue to be born. There are several barriers to efficient management: delayed infant diagnosis, lack of appropriate paediatric formulations, lack of skilled health personnel, etc. Poorly developed immunity allows greater dissemination throughout various organs. There is an increased frequency of malnutrition and infections that may be more persistent, severe and less responsive to treatment. In addition, these growing children are left with inescapable challenges of facing not only lifelong adherence with complex treatment regimens, but also enormous psychosocial, mental and neuro-cognitive issues. These unique challenges must be recognized and understood in order to provide appropriate holistic management enabling them to become productive citizens of tomorrow. To address these multi-factorial issues, there is an urgent need for a concerted, sustainable and multi-pronged national and global response.
The term "Adolescence" literally means "to emerge" or "to attain identity" and is essentially the period of rapid physical and psychological development starting from the onset of puberty to complete growth. All adolescents go through a myriad of physical, psychological, neurobehavioural, hormonal and social developmental changes. Given the social taboos often surrounding puberty, the lives of millions of adolescents worldwide are at risk because they do not have the information, skills, health services and support they need to go through the enormous, rapid changes that adolescence brings. A HIV infected adolescent particularly presents enormous challenges in the current cultural and social context of India. The distinct groups of adolescents in the context of HIV are those who were infected at birth and survived and those who became infected during adolescence. Risk factors and situations for adolescents contracting HIV infection are life on streets, lack of adult love/care and support, extreme poverty, child trafficking, migrant population, exploitation in terms of sex and labor. HIV-infected adolescents with long standing HIV infection often face considerable physical challenges - delayed growth and development, late puberty, stunting/wasting, malnutrition, etc. Added to this are many other challenges related mainly to disclosure of HIV status, developmental delay, and transition from pediatric to adult care, including the choice of appropriate treatment regimens and adherence. Psychological and social factors deeply impact the ability to deal with the illness and must be addressed at all levels to encourage and support this vulnerable group.
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