WASHINGTON, 30 nov (AFP) - On the eve of World AIDS Day, US President Bill Clinton Thursday called the deadly condition a menace to international security and said the United States was committed to finding a cure.
"Because the spread of HIV has reached catastrophic proportions in many areas of our global community, AIDS has become a national and international security threat," Clinton said in a statement.
"We reaffirm our shared commitment to carry on the fight until our battle against this devastating disease is won," he said.
Since HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, was discovered 15 years ago, some 21.8 million people have died because of it, three million of them in the past year alone.
More than 50 million people are carriers of the AIDS virus.
The US government has budgeted some 460 million dollars for fiscal 2001 to fight HIV/AIDS and other deadly infectious diseases.
001130
AF0011D9
Copyright © AFP or Agence France-Presse, 2000 - All Rights Reserved. AFP articles contained on the AEGiS web site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, displayed, published or broadcast without AFP's prior written permission. You may make one copy of each article for your personal, non-commercial use only; more copies would require AFP's prior written permission.. http://www.afp.com/
©1990, 2000 - ÆGiS. ÆGiS presents published material, reprinted with permission and neither endorses nor opposes any material. All materials appearing on ÆGIS are protected by copyright as a collective work or compilation under U.S. copyright and other laws and are the property of ÆGIS and the Sisters of Saint Elizabeth of Hungary, or the party credited as the provider of the content.