Sunday July 22, 2007

Bill Clinton visits AIDS projects during Zambian trip

LUSAKA, Zambia (AP): Former U.S. President Bill Clinton said cheap anti-AIDS drugs were not the magic bullet for ending the epidemic ravaging African countries, and that much more attention should be paid to overall health care infrastructure.

"The availability of the medicine at affordable prices will soon be not much of an issue anywhere,'' Clinton said Saturday during a one-day visit to Zambia. On Sunday, he was flying to Tanzania, after earlier this week visiting South Africa and Malawi.

"How cruel it would be if people continue to die because of inadequate health care facilities in rural areas,'' he said as he toured a new drug distribution warehouse in Lusaka financed by his foundation.

Since leaving office in 2001, Clinton has used his prestige and contacts to negotiate lower prices on AIDS drugs for poor countries in Africa and Asia, helping to save tens of thousands of lives. But the fight against the killer disease is still hampered by overstretched facilities, stigma and an acute lack of skilled staff.

"When we look to the future, we have to ask ourselves how the rest of the system can catch up with the medicine,'' Clinton said.

Zambia has put more than 93,000 HIV-positive people on anti-retroviral treatment over the last few years with help from the United States and other partners. But about 16 percent of the population is HIV-positive, and the country has a serious shortage of health care workers.

It was Clinton's first visit to Zambia, and Zambian officials vied for photos with Clinton, who remains highly popular.

"You were great in office, and you are even greater out of office,'' Zambia's health minister, Brian Chituwo, said in a speech.

Clinton toured the warehouse with Philippe Douste-Blazy, chairman of the board of UNITAID, an organization formed last year by France and 19 other nations that have earmarked a portion of their airline tax revenues for efforts to fight HIV/AIDS in developing countries. The Clinton Foundation is working with UNITAID, and they announced a deal in May to lower the cost of back-up drugs to HIV-positive people who have developed resistance to standard treatment.

He also presided over a youth soccer tournament in Lusaka and stressed the importance of HIV testing. "Most of the people in Africa, and in the world, who have the HIV virus ... do not know it,'' Clinton told a crowd of children and dignitaries.

Clinton tore off his red tie and put on a green, red and yellow Boy Scout neckerchief presented to him by Kenneth Kaunda, Zambia's first president, who has also been active on HIV/AIDS issues since leaving office power in 1991.

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