Clinton Urges Action Against AIDS

Delivering the Diana, Princess of Wales Memorial Lecture on AIDS in London on Thursday, former President Bill Clinton called on governments, businesses and individuals to do more to fight HIV/AIDS. Estimates of 100 million AIDS cases by 2005, he warned, could become a reality unless more is done to fight the epidemic.

Clinton, who now chairs the advisory board of the International AIDS Trust, called on Western countries to give financial incentives to pharmaceutical companies to encourage them to continue working on an AIDS vaccine and cure. He suggested that governments learn from each other, citing prevention programs in Cambodia that have seen a 30 percent reduction in HIV among pregnant women in four years, and a prevention and treatment program in Uganda that has seen the overall adult HIV rate fall by almost half in four years. "All we need to do is take what works wherever it has been implemented and implement it everywhere AIDS is," Clinton said.

Western countries should contribute to the global fund set up by UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, Clinton said, which would cost approximately $7 billion annually. "This is far cheaper than picking up the pieces of the shattered lands and shattered lives that we will live with if there are 100 million AIDS cases in 2005," he said. "About two and a half times as many people die every day from AIDS as died on Sept. 11 from the terrorist attacks."

Companies, Clinton suggested, could contribute computers and marketing expertise to improve health promotion campaigns, as well as offering HIV/AIDS testing to employees and the community. The International AIDS Trust, he said, was working "to tap the genius people have for fighting AIDS at the grassroots level . . ."

Clinton added, "This is not rocket science. It is a matter of money, organization and will. Yes, it won't be over until we develop a vaccine or some other cure, but we can certainly prevent 100 million AIDS cases; we can certainly prevent 40 million orphans. The tragedy of 2005 doesn't have to become a reality."

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