Countries around the world are today marking World AIDS Day, a day set aside since 1988 to raise awareness of the fight against the HIV/AIDS pandemic.

The UN agency that deals with combating the pandemic says that a lot of progress has been made, but that there needs to be a push for people to have a right to health services.

It says that 21 million people around the world are receiving treatment but that 17 million others are missing out.

Michel Sidibe, the executive director of UNAids, said, the goal to end Aids by 2030 will be severely undermined if access to health is not considered a right:

"The world will not achieve the Sustainable Development Goals - which include the target of ending Aids by 2030 - without people attaining their right to health. The right to health is interrelated with a range of other rights, including the rights to sanitation, food, decent housing, healthy working conditions and a clean environment. Western and central Africa is still being left behind. Two out of three people are not accessing treatment. We cannot have a two-speed approach to ending Aids."

BBC