Only 15 percent of the children who need anti-retroviral drugs are receiving them, UNICEF said adding that 330,000 children are dying every year of AIDS.
"With a view to the donor conference of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Malaria and Tuberculosis, UNICEF demands that greater efforts be made at last to improve the medical care of 2.3 million children worldwide infected with HIV," the UNICEF said in a press release.
Heide Simonis, UNICEF's chairwoman for Germany, said that hundreds of thousands of young children are still dying because of a lack of medicine and shortage of healthcare providers despite AIDS drugs being cheaper than ever.
The new anti-retroviral treatment for children is easier to administer and does not need cold storage and it is considered a breakthrough in the fight against AIDS in developing nations, UNICEF said.
The United Nations, in collaboration with G8 nations and non-governmental organisations will collect pledges to fund AIDS programmes between 2008 and 2010 carried out by the Global Fund. The funds will be raised between Wednesday to Thursday
The Global Fund has estimated a sum of 12 to 18 billion dollars will be needed to fight AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis over this three-year period.
Urging the donor nations to "keep their promises so that the latest developments in AIDS research can also benefit children in the developing world," UNICEF said the three diseases kill more than six million people a year.
The Global Fund was created to finance a dramatic turn-around in the fight against AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria. To date, the Global Fund has committed US$ 8.4 billion in 136 countries to support aggressive interventions against all three diseases.
