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Western nations have been "too slow" to help fight HIV/AIDS and hunger in Africa and have employed a "double standard" regarding treatment of HIV-positive Africans, Stephen Lewis, the UN Secretary General's special envoy on HIV/AIDS, said on Monday.
Lewis, on a three-week tour of southern Africa, called the West's response to the pandemic in Africa "woefully inadequate". He added that people living HIV/AIDS in developed countries could live for years due to access to treatment options, while those in African countries were "condemned to death," the UN news agency UN Wire reported.
Sub-Saharan Africa, which is home to approximately 70 percent of people living with HIV/AIDS, has lost seven million agricultural workers since 1995 due to HIV/AIDS-related illnesses, a situation that has added to the region's widespread food shortages, Lewis said.
Lewis noted that the Global Fund to fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria needed at least US $10 billion to manage the spread of the pandemic.
"We know there is a lot of money out there, we know there is plenty food ... but something must be profoundly wrong somewhere, something is morally wrong somewhere," Lewis said.
This article was produced by IRIN News while it was part of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Please send queries on copyright or liability to the UN. For more information: https://shop.un.org/rights-permissions