Over 40% of HIV patients in Guinea do not have access to ARVs

Over 40 percent of the people infected with HIV/AIDS in Guinea do not have access to anti- retroviral drugs (ARVs), a source from Medicins Sans Frontiere (MSF, Doctors Without Borders) said in a statement on Friday, just a day before the World AIDS Day. Guinea has a 1.5 percent prevalence rate of HIV infections which translates to 80,000 people from all genders as well as people from different professional background. Among those infected, only one out of six children receives the appropriate medication while only four out of ten infected women receive ARV medication. The Guinean government and its development partners intend to use the World AIDS Day to sensitize the public about the disease which is common in the poor countries and urge them to change their behavior. Estimates of the socio-economic impact of AIDS in Guinea show that if no immediate concrete action is taken, then the number of deaths of infected people who are aged between 15 - 49 years will reach 37 percent in 2015. In October, the Global Fund for AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria gave Guinea 120 million U.S. dollars to fight the three diseases for the next five years