Complacency in HIV/AIDS management kills children in West and Central Africa
Abidjan — Angry HIV/AIDS activists are urging Western and Central Africa to step up the fight against HIV, saying millions of people, especially children, are at risk from complacency and underfunding. A six-day conference in Ivory Coast has thrown a stark light on the problems in a region whose two dozen nations extend from Mauritania in the north to Gabon in the south, and include some of the poorest countries in the world. Coalition Plus, an alliance of AIDS groups, said HIV/AIDS-related deaths in Western and Central Africa are running at 5.1%, more than twice the 2.1% on the rest of the continent. The region accounts for just 6% of the global population, but has at least 16% of the total of the world’s adults — categorised as people aged over 15 years — who live with HIV. The share rises even more dramatically, to 25%, in the category of infected children aged from birth up to 14 years. Even though the HIV pandemic is more than four decades old, nearly 80% of the estimated 540,0...
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