The gap between the number of people who need antiretroviral drugs for HIV and those who receive them, especially in poor nations, is still too large and set to grow, a report on global access to antiretrovirals has warned.

The report says that, at the end of 2005, the number of people in low and middle income countries receiving antiretrovirals was estimated at 1.3 million, or 20% of those eligible, up from only 400 000 (7%) two years earlier.

But access to antiretroviral drugs remains too low in many countries. In Mozambique, only 9% of 216 000 eligible people are being treated. The figures for Zimbabwe and the Democratic Republic …