Increasing Rate of Mortality Due to HIV/AIDS in Iranian Children: An Alarm for Health Policymakers

In the recent decade, substantial reductions in child mortality rate occurred in both developed and developing countries. However, these achievements are now being threatened in many developing countries by the emerging of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, such that the decline in trend of child mortality rates has decreased in some countries and begun to reverse direction in others (1). In Iran, more than 50% of HIV cases occurred in 25-34 yr old as an active age group and in the age of marriage. Therefore, HIV/AIDS can directly transmit through vertical transmission and through orphanhood and inadequate care for newborn indirectly affect child death (2). Although HIV is not among the leading cause of child death in Iran and only in 2015, nearly 0.03 per l000 live births in children were attributed to HIV/AIDS (Fig. 1), but the worrying issue is an increasing trend in the rate of deaths from AIDS during 2000-2015.