GABORONE, Dec 11 (AFP) - US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright Monday visited an HIV/AIDS clinic in Botswana and promised continued US funding for the fight against the disease.
Albright was welcomed with singing and traditional dancing at the clinic in Gaborone, which specialises in preventing mother-to-child transmission of the HIV virus.
After spending time talking to women being treated at the clinic, she watched a video that encourages pregnant women to ask for testing to prevent their children becoming infected with HIV.
Albright, accompanied by Botswana Health Minister Joy Phumaphi, said "the people and government of Botswana are not alone in waging this war" against HIV/AIDS, which has already infected 18 to 20 percent of the country's population.
Botswana last year received some five million dollars in US funding for the fight against HIV/AIDS, and Albright promised that it would get "at least as much" in 2001.
Albright's visit to Botswana marks the last leg of a tour of southern Africa that has also taken her to Mauritius and South Africa.
About 300,000 of Botswana's population of 1.6 million people are HIV-positive, making it the country with the highest infection rate in the world, according to UN figures.
The infection rate among pregnant women is on average 40 percent, but has risen to 50 percent in some parts of the country.
According to the UN statistics, 24,000 of the 60,000 children born in Botswana every year are exposed to the HIV-virus through their infected mothers. Of these, about 8,000 contract the disease.
Earlier Monday, Albright signed an agreement with the University of Botswana for financial assistance to the tune of 1.6 million dollars, cementing a promise that President Bill Clinton made when he visited the country in 1998.
On Monday afternoon, the Secretary of State was due to hold talks with President Festus Mogae and Foreign Minister Mompati Merafhe.
She was due to leave later in the day for Algiers, where she is to attend the signing of a peace agreement between Ethiopia and Eritrea on Tuesday.
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