On Wednesday, former U.S. President Bill Clinton told a Tanzanian audience, "We can get you the medicine you need and do the same for other countries in Africa, but the most important barrier to scaling up the treatment of ARV [antiretroviral therapy] is the lack of well-trained people in every country."

"You just can't get the medicine, ship it into a country, and drop it from the sky," Clinton added. "If it is going to save people's lives, the medicine must be accompanied by instructions, monitoring, by follow-up, and changing the medicine if necessary."

Clinton -- whose foundation will spend some $10 million on AIDS-affected children this year, mainly in rural Africa -- spoke at the launch of a program to train 30 medical staff annually to work in remote regions of Africa. Tanzanian President Benjamin Mkapa attended the event.

Africa has the lowest number of doctors per person in the world and the highest prevalence of diseases such as HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis. Sub-Saharan Africa averages 12.5 doctors per 100,000 people. Many medical professionals seek better salaries and working conditions in Europe and the United States.

"One of the greatest challenges we face in expanding the HIV/AIDS care and treatment plan is human resources," Mkapa said. He predicted that by 2008 Tanzania would have a 20 percent staffing shortfall for the country's HIV/AIDS care and treatment plan.

Twenty-five percent of the 2 million Tanzanians with HIV have developed AIDS. Just 20,000 are on government-provided ARV therapy. Tanzania hopes to boost that to 44,000 by the end of 2005.

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