Pediatric Enhanced Surveillance Study

South Africa is one of the countries hardest hit by the HIV/AIDS epidemic. There are more than 5 million people living with HIV in South Africa, including 280,000 children under the age of 15. Most HIV positive children acquire infection through mother-to-child transmission; in South Africa 29.3% of pregnant women attending antenatal services are HIV-infected. Furthermore, it is estimated that HIV is the cause of 35% of all deaths in children under five in South Africa. The South African government began a national rollout of HIV treatment for adults and children in 2003. As of 2007, an estimated 32,060 children under the age of 15 were receiving antiretroviral therapy (roughly 30% of those in need). There is an urgent need to obtain more comprehensive, in-depth, profiles of children enrolled in HIV care with a focus on documenting outcomes, particularly timing and causes of death, reasons for loss to follow-up, timing and frequency of treatment failure, adverse events, metabolic complications and psychosocial aspects of HIV disease.