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 The United Nations AIDS program (UNAIDS) launched a five-year
treatment program in 2014 to ensure that by 2020 almost all people
with HIV worldwide know their status and receive treatment.
The drugs used to treat HIV also help to curb the spread of the
virus.
Only one in four adults and one in 10 children living with HIV in
West and Central Africa have access to antiretroviral (ARV) drugs,
compared to almost half of HIV sufferers in Eastern and Southern
Africa, MSF said.
HIV treatment is not considered a priority in West and Central
Africa by donors or governments, as the region has a smaller
percentage of people infected with HIV than Eastern and Southern
Africa, said Mit Philips, health policy advisor at MSF.
"Donors focus mostly on high prevalence countries, like in Southern
Africa, where everyone knows someone affected by HIV," Philips told
the Thomson Reuters Foundation by phone from Brussels.
Parts of Southern Africa have the world's highest HIV rates,
including Swaziland where 27 percent of people aged 15 to 49 have
HIV, and South Africa which has a prevalence rate of nearly 20
percent.
"People with HIV in West and Central Africa are neglected ... the
low prevalence rate is misleading but means there is a lack of
interest and that the disease is less visible in society," Philips
added.
Two percent of people in West and Central Africa have HIV, yet the
region accounts for one in five new infections annually worldwide,
one in four AIDS-related deaths and almost half of all children born
with HIV, according to MSF.
While conflict across the region and epidemics of other diseases
like Ebola have hindered HIV treatment, stigma, weak health systems
and lack of political will have worsened the situation, MSF said in
a report published on Wednesday.
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"Many people face an obstacle course to obtain ARV drugs - they face
stigma within society and even prejudice from health workers,
struggle to pay transport or consultation fees, and often find there
are low stocks of the drugs," Philips said.
Some 36.9 million people worldwide are living with HIV, which is
spread through blood, semen and breast milk and causes AIDS, and
more than half of them do not have access to treatment. Many do not
know they have the virus.
UNAIDS said in November that its treatment program, called 90-90-90,
was starting to show results as the nearly 16 million people being
treated by June 2015 was double the number in 2010.
(Reporting By Kieran Guilbert, Editing by Alex Whiting; Please
credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson
Reuters, that covers humanitarian news, women's rights, trafficking,
corruption and climate change. Visit news.trust.org)
[© 2016 Thomson Reuters. All rights
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