AIDS fight ‘is failing’

GLOBAL efforts to fight HIV/AIDS and other diseases and reduce the number of women who die in childbirth will founder unless the international community boosts basic medical care in poor countries, the World Health Organisation said yesterday.

Campaigns against individual diseases are essential, but policy-makers must also focus on overall health services because neglecting them increases the risk that epidemics will spread across national borders, the UN health agency said in its annual report.

AIDS kills 5,000 adults and 1,000 children every day in Africa.