DRC: Alarm bells over poor funding for HIV treatment

The lives of thousands of HIV-positive people in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) are at risk as the country faces declining donor funding and a severe shortage of HIV treatment, according to Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF). MSF recently launched a year-long advocacy campaign to raise awareness of the DRC's HIV crisis. 'The problem is quite old in the DRC; the country has always been minimized by donors who have not seen it as a priority, mainly because HIV prevalence is relatively low at between 3 and 4 percent,' Thierry Dethier, advocacy manager for MSF Belgium in the DRC, told IRIN/PlusNews.