WASHINGTON, Dec 4 (AFP) - The United States has agreed to join a French project that pairs hospitals in participating countries to hospitals in the developing world, to improve their access to AIDS therapies, French Health Minister Bernard Kouchner announced during a visit here.
"This hospital partnership is a French project that became a European project and now, with this announcement, an American project," Kouchner told reporters Monday.
Kouchner welcomed the US participation, saying it "will really make a difference."
"Americans are no longer observers, now they are participants, so it's a true success."
The goal of the sister-hospitals project is to improve access to therapies for patients with AIDS and HIV in southern hemisphere countries, especially Africa.
Ten European countries have signed on to the project since France proposed it in May.
During his working visit to Washington Kouchner met with his US counterpart, Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson, and other US health officials, and attended an AIDS conference at a local think-tank, the Brookings Institution.
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