AIDS drug funding not keeping up with need in Africa

An independent, global medical and humanitarian organization says African nations are not receiving adequate international funding to fight HIV/AIDS, leaving them to face catastrophic consequences without enough medication.

Experts at Médecins Sans Frontières, or Doctors Without Borders, on Thursday said Congo is only able to supply anti-retroviral drugs to 15 per cent of the people needing them and "patients are literally dying on our doorstep."

In a statement released in Johannesburg ahead of the United Nations world AIDS conference in Washington starting July 22, the organization said countries worst affected by the pandemic were the least able to provide "the best science" available to fight it.

The group says that while world data by the U.N. has pointed to gains over the disease, donors have scaled back on earlier funding commitments to Africa.