Ahern’s €110m donation to Clinton makes Ireland third largest buyer of AIDS drugs

THE Taoiseach agreed yesterday to give Bill Clinton up to €110m to fight AIDS and HIV in Africa.

According to the former US President, it will make Ireland the world's third largest buyer of drugs for the treatment of AIDS.

The Government yesterday became the first in the world to back the aid organisation set up by Mr Clinton the William J Clinton Presidential Foundation to provide anti-retroviral drugs to fight HIV/AIDS in Africa.

Under the agreement, the Taoiseach immediately committed to giving the foundation €50m over five years with the possibility of an additional allocation up to €60m.

This year the Government is spending €450m on Third-World development, with more than €40m being spent last year on HIV/AIDS programmes.

Only the USA and Brazil spend more on anti-retroviral drugs, but the majority of these drugs are for domestic use.

The agreement between the Government and Mr Clinton's organisation will see the money being spent in Mozambique. It will allow the Mozambique government to increase access for HIV/AIDS treatment in a country, where 15% of the population is infected with the virus, yet only a couple of hundred people get proper medication. The plan is to provide treatment and medicine for up to half a million people.

Mr Clinton said a dramatic increase in consciousness was needed worldwide about the extent of the HIV/AIDS crisis.

Describing AIDS as the greatest development challenge of the 21st century, Mr Ahern said the lower cost and greater availability of life-saving anti-retroviral drugs now means the treatment of AIDS can become a reality for people in poorer countries.

"Today only 40,000 people receive anti-retroviral treatment for AIDS in Africa, although more than four million people on this continent are in need of this treatment," Mr Ahern said.

Mr Clinton also praised U2 frontman Bono, who he says has been instrumental in helping tackle the problems of the Third World.

Denying that his interest in HIV/AIDS was politically-motivated, he said Bono was immensely helpful to him and was an enormously gifted person politically.

"But you have to remember, when I first became president, the US had the world's biggest AIDS problem," he said.

Mr Clinton said he wouldn't discount the efforts of his successor, George W Bush.