LAKE PLACID, New York, Aug 19 (AFP) - US President Bill Clinton signed a bill Saturday setting up an international fund to fight AIDS in the most vulnerable countries, warning the disease poses a security threat as well as a health emergency.

"Fighting AIDS worldwide is not just the right thing to do, it's the smart thing. In our tightly connected world, infectious disease anywhere is a threat to public health everywhere," Clinton said in his weekly radio address.

"AIDS threatens the economies of the poorest countries, the stability of friendly nations, the future of fragile democracies," said Clinton, who was celebrating his 54th birthday in this upstate New York resort town.

The new fund set up by the bill, the AIDS Trust Fund, will be coordinated through the World Bank and will offer grants for prevention, care and education to countries hardest hit by the disease, particularly in Africa, where AIDS is now the number one cause of death.

The foreign aid bill, which was passed by Congress last month, also provides 150 million dollars a year for two years in US contributions.

It is hoped that the US donations will prompt up to 1 billion dollars in donations from other countries.

The US bill offers 50 million dollars in new funding for the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization, 10 million dollars for the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative and 60 million dollars to fight tuberculosis.

Clinton, who travels to Nigeria and Tanzania next week, has also appointed the first US AIDS czar to concentrate on fighting the disease world-wide.

Sandy Thurman, who currently presides over the White House national AIDS policy office, will "use America's growing efforts as leverage to encourage other countries to expand financial commitments" to fighting the disease, Clinton said when he announced the appointment last week.

In 1999, an estimated 34.3 million people -- the vast majority of them in developing countries -- were infected with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), which causes AIDS. Some 24.5 million of those infected live in sub-Saharan Africa.

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