Former U.S. President Clinton, Former South African President Mandela Call for AIDS Action

Former US President Bill Clinton and former South African President Nelson Mandela today called on world leaders to recognize AIDS as a threat to international peace and economic stability. At the close of the 14th International AIDS Conference in Barcelona, Clinton said, "We cannot lose our war against AIDS and win our battle against poverty, promote stability, advance democracy and increase peace and prosperity." The audience cheered wildly as Clinton and Mandela embraced.

Clinton called on governments of rich countries to "figure out what our share is" of the yearly $10 billion the UN says is needed to finance the global AIDS fight. He called on America to increase its spending by nearly $2 billion, which would amount to "less than two months of the Afghan war, less than 3 percent of the requested increase of defense and homeland security budgets."

Mandela, who had tuberculosis while imprisoned during his nation's apartheid era, noted that AIDS is claiming more victims "than all wars and natural disasters. AIDS is a war against humanity... this is a war that requires the mobilization of entire populations." He called for access to HIV drugs "for all those that need it, wherever they may be in the world, regardless of whether they can afford it."

As the largest-ever HIV/AIDS conference drew to a close, experts said more determination and more money must be devoted to the worldwide war against the epidemic if HIV is to be thwarted. Issues that dominated the weeklong gathering, which drew 15,000 people, included the need to get drugs to more people, the plight of women in HIV-ravaged nations, and determining how much the efforts will cost during the next decade. Seth Berkley, president of the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative, called the conference "a splash of cold water" on how the world is doing in the fight against AIDS.

There is still no cure or preventive vaccine on the horizon. "That makes the case for prevention stronger than ever," said Dr. Ronald Valdiserri, the CDC's deputy HIV chief. "We have to be careful not to let prevention be overshadowed by the significant treatment issues. Let's reinvigorate our efforts and approach this epidemic they way we did in the 1980s and 1990s, where we did see a tremendous change in behavior and decreases in transmission," Valdiserri said.

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