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AFRICA: G8 AIDS and poverty deadlock costing lives

[This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations]

JOHANNESBURG, 21 April (PLUSNEWS) - Experts fear close to 750,000 Africans will die from AIDS and malaria before July, when the 'Group of Eight' (G8) most industrialised nations will try to break a deadlock over debt relief and funds to fight disease and poverty.

At a recent meeting, G8 finance ministers again failed to agree on funding, despite a World Bank report warning that they risked missing the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) set by the UN in 2000.

Zia Qureshi, author of the report, was quoted by Reuters as saying: "Behind cold statistics on the MDGs are real people, and lack of progress has immediate and tragic consequences. Every week in the developing world 200,000 children under five die of preventable diseases - a tragedy on the scale of the recent Asian tsunami."

The MDGs to be achieved by 2015 include halving the number of people living on less than US $1 a day, halting the spread of AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis, and improving access to education.

[ENDS]

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