Former US president Mr Bill Clinton appeared at an Indian drug-making plant this morning to back the production of low-cost, lifesaving medicines for HIV and AIDS patients in Africa and the Caribbean.
"There are six million people in the world who need medication for HIV AIDS, of whom only about 300,000 are getting anti-retroviral drugs," Mr Clinton told a news conference at Ranbaxy Laboratories, in this city on the outskirts of New Delhi, India's capital.
His William J. Clinton Foundation has brokered an agreement for four Indian drug companies and a South African firm to cut the price of their AIDS drugs for distribution in South Africa, Mozambique, Rwanda, Tanzania, Bahamas.
He said the initiative will make HIV drugs available at a cost of $139 a year. "It cuts costs of HIV/AIDS drugs by two-thirds, making it affordable for a maximum number of people, considering the staggering dimension of this problem," he said.
He said without treatment being available, young people cannot be made to come and get tested.