Ahern pledges millions to help fight spread of HIV in southern Africa

TAOISEACH Bertie Ahern yesterday launched an Irish aid project to help combat the alarming spread of HIV in southern Africa.

The multimillion euro initiative seeks to provide care for those most affected and use education to help check the spread of HIV.

More than two-thirds of the people who die from AIDS around the world live in southern Africa. Unless it is curbed, it has been warned that the disease will kill somewhere between five and seven million South Africans by 2010.