Editorial commentary: Children with HIV in low-prevalence settings: Finding the needle in a haystack

摘要

In this issue of Clinical Infectious Diseases, Zhao and colleagues describe the Chinese experience in scaling up pedi-atric human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) care and treatment for children living with HIV in a low-prevalence setting [1]. The overall survival and retention in this cohort is noteworthy; after 3 years of antiretroviral treatment (ART), 94% of children were still alive and only 5.4% were lost to follow-up. Of the children who received testing, 82% had plasma viral loads <400 copies/mL. Compared with a previous description of a subset of the same cohort published in 2007 [2], the reported outcomes in this issue highlight a remarkable improvement in the quality and coverage of treatment services offered to children since the start of the Chinese national pediatric treatment program in 2005.