French first lady Carla Bruni-Sarkozy is in Burkina Faso on an anti-AIDS mission during which she called for larger access for women and children to the treatment of this and other pandemic diseases, reports monitored here said on Thursday.
Bruni-Sarkozy arrived in Ouagadougou, the capital of the West African country, on Tuesday night for a 72-hour visit.
After her arrival, she went to the country's largest medical center, the Yalgado Ouedraogoa Hospital, to meet with patients suffering from HIV/AIDS.
The French first lady voiced solidarity with Burkina Faso, the second worst hit country in West Africa, in its "immediate urgencies" against the killer disease. She also urged better services for malaria and TB patients.
The country's HIV infections reduced to 1.6 percent in 2007 from a 7.4 percent high reported 10 years before, with anti- retroviral treatment reaching an estimated 21,000 patients.
Bruni-Sarkozy is on her first trip as an anti-AIDS ambassador since accepting the role in November, when she planned a Global Fund to help women and children in the fight against HIV/AIDS, malaria and TB.