NEWSWEEK COVER: 'Aids at 25'; Clinton on Needed Efforts to Provide Affordable Aids Medication in Developing Countries: 'Only 40,000 of the 660,000 Children

Who Now Need Treatment Are Getting It. Even If We Add Another 50,000 This

Year, and Other Donors Do More, Hundreds of Thousands of Children Will Still

Die Needlessly.'

NEW YORK, May 7 /PRNewswire/ -- When President Clinton left the White House, he wanted to do more to stem the number deaths from AIDS in the developing world, especially in Africa, home to more than two thirds of the people with the virus, he writes in an essay in the current issue. In the May 15 issue of Newsweek "AIDS at 25" (on newsstands Monday, May 8), Newsweek devotes the issue to examining how AIDS has transformed the nation, bringing out the best and worst in us, our culture and our souls. The cover package features a photo portfolio of faces of HIV survivors and includes reports on how the disease is affecting Black America, Ellis Cose on what Black Leadership is doing about it, a profile of Peter Piot, executive director of the Joint United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), and an essay by Melinda Gates on the international effort to fight the disease.

(Photo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20060507/NYSU009 )

In his essay, Clinton discusses the strides his foundation has made in AIDS awareness, education, prevention and treatment. "We have met that goal by reducing drug prices, get ting funding from private philanthropists and helping to train health workers," Clinton writes. "That may sound good, but only 40,000 of the 660,000 children who now need treatment are getting it. Even if we add another 50,000 this year, and other donors do more, hundreds of thousands of children will still die needlessly. My goal is to in crease the number on treatment fivefold."

Clinton credits new money invested by donors like the Global Fund and the Bush Administration for the lower prices and greater competition for HIV/AIDS medicines, tests and treatment. "Overall, the number of people accessing treatment in the developing world has increased from less than 400,000 to over 1.3 million since the beginning of 2004; about 25 percent of those new recipients are receiving this medicine from the contracts we negotiated," Clinton writes. He continues, "As treatment becomes more accessible, people at risk have stronger incentives to get tested for HIV. We can't stem the tide of new infections until the already-infected people know their status. It is an urgent priority because 90 percent of HIV-positive people don't know they are infected."

Heartened by the progress that has been made, Clinton says he is grieved by how much further they have to go. "I am encouraged by the fact that we can provide a woman in rural Africa with AIDS medicines from the other side of the globe, but impatient that we cannot empower her sufficiently to protect herself from getting HIV in the first place" he writes. "I am frustrated when I see AIDS medicines delivered without food or clean water. I am unhappy that we are not doing more to keep the people who deliver essential care in Africa."

(Read entire cover package at www.Newsweek.com. ) http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12665696/site/newsweek/  Bill Clinton: Guest Essay:

My Quest to Improve Care SOURCE Newsweek