PRETORIA, Dec 8 (AFP) - US interest in Africa will continue, with the next president -- whoever he is -- bound to pursue an active policy toward the continent, visiting Secretary of State Madeleine Albright declared in Pretoria Friday.

"Dealing with Africa is not optional," she told journalists accompanying her.

The next US president will have to deal with Africa "in great detail", Albright said after talks with South African President Thabo Mbeki on the first leg of a swansong tour which will also take her to the Indian Ocean republic of Mauritius, and to Botswana.

She added a fourth stop in Africa to her itinerary Friday, announcing she would visit Algiers on Tuesday for the signing of a peace accord between Ethiopia and Eritrea.

Africa and issues affecting Africa had to be clearly understood as being in the US national interest, she said.

Africa was long neglected by Washington, but the continent took a new importance under President Bill Clinton, who has visited Africa twice.

Albright herself is on her fourth visit to Africa as secretary of state.

She said her talks with Mbeki ranged over the situations in Mozambique, Angola, Zimbabwe and the Democratic Republic of Congo, as well as AIDS.

A joint press conference had been announced for after the talks, but was cancelled by the presidency "due to unforeseen circumstances".

Albright made only a veiled reference to criticism swirling in South Africa and among the world's medical community over Mbeki's questioning of the link betyween HIV and AIDS, and his support for dissident AIDS scientists, saying simply that there was a need for "clear statements" on the subject.

Earlier in the day she visited an AIDS research centre at the big Chris Hani-Baragwanath hospital in the Johannesburg township of Soweto.

Wearing a red AIDS ribbon, she was welcomed with a traditional song by women, with their babies, suffering from HIV or full-blown AIDS.

"I came here not only to see or to have a chance to say hello to the women and their beautiful babies but to make clear that this is something that benefits both of our countries," she said.

Albright said the US government was aware of the economic and social consequences of the HIV/AIDS epidemic and recognised that it "is not only a terrible disease but also a very important security issue."

"This is not just a disease that is African, it's not the continent or nation's disease, but a global disease," she added.

South Africa has the world's greatest number of HIV-positive inhabitants -- 4.2 million, or one in 10 South Africans at the end of 1999, according to government figures.

Sub-Saharan Africa is home to no less than 70 percent of the world's 36 million sufferers from HIV and AIDS.

Albright was due to have a working breakfast Saturday with South African Foreign Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma before flying on to Mauritius.

After stopping over in Algiers after her Botswana visit, she is due to fly on to Budapest, then to Brussels for a NATO ministerial meeting on December 14-15.

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