Global AIDS conference begins in Mexico

By Tan Ee Lyn

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Many developing countries that are combating AIDS are facing dire shortages of qualified doctors and nurses as healthcare workers leave for developed countries where they are paid many times more.

"We need to assist poor countries to train more health staff, provide commensurate salaries to enable them to live better lives and carry out their work," Moses Massaquoi, medical coordinator with Medecins Sans Frontieres in Malawi, told Reuters at a global AIDS conference in Mexico City.

The shortage of medical staff leaves HIV patients untended, to die without drugs that can keep them alive and healthy even if they do not offer a cure. Treating AIDS patients requires dedicated training, and most countries with a huge burden of the disease simply do not have enough of such professionals.

Peter Piot, executive director of the U.N. AIDS agency UNAIDS, echoed Massaquoi's comments at the conference, where international agencies, health officials, scientists, pharmaceutical companies and nongovernmental groups will discuss ways to stop the epidemic over the coming week.

"Three million people (globally) have access to drugs, but six million do not. AIDS is far from over," Piot said.

"There is a need to expand treatment to those who do not yet have treatment."

In Malawi, where 12 percent of the population of 12 million is infected with HIV, a nurse who cares for AIDS patients earns $3 a day.

Massaquoi said it was little wonder why half of those who need treatment, or 141,000 people, have not been able to get drugs.