Medical aid group urges better HIV treatment in West Africa

Governments need to improve access to HIV treatment in West and Central Africa, where critical medicines reach less than one-third of those in need, Doctors Without Borders said on Tuesday.

The call by the group, also known as Medecins Sans Frontieres, came a day before a United Nations high-level meeting on ending AIDS.

The group praised a global goal to curb the HIV epidemic by 2020 by providing life-saving treatment to 30 million people, but said countries in regions with a lower prevalence of HIV are being overlooked.

The report said 4.5 million of the 6.5 million people living with HIV in West and Central Africa don't get treatment.