AEGiS-AP: Madeleine Albright receives honor from Romanian president; visits HIV children

Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2002. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.

Madeleine Albright receives honor from Romanian president; visits HIV children

Associated Press - Monday, November 25, 2002

BUCHAREST, Romania - Former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright on Monday was honored with an award to thank her for helping toward expanding NATO , which Romania was invited to join last week.

President Ion Iliescu conferred on Albright the National Order for "Faithful Service," also as a sign of Romania's gratitude for close ties with the United States and Albright's efforts at bringing greater stability to the Balkans, the president's office said in a statement.

Albright was secretary of state from 1997 to 2000 in the Clinton administration.

One of her last official acts was to urge the alliance to hold last week's summit in Prague, where NATO invited seven ex-communist countries to join.

"There is a lot of hard work ahead," said Albright at a discussion with students and politicians at the University of Bucharest about NATO membership. "NATO membership is not a gift, it is responsibility," she said.

Also Monday, she visited the Matei Bals Hospital, where she met children suffering from the HIV virus , who were making Christmas cards.

While Romania has only about 10,000 people infected with the HIV virus, it has the highest number of children infected with HIV and with the disease in Europe - about 8,000.

About 40 percent of HIV patients receive modern drug therapy. Albright was traveling with officials from a pharmaceutical company.

Most children were infected by transfusions of blood containing the virus and by injections with used syringes. About 90 percent of children got the virus in hospitals.

Former Communist dictator Nicolae Ceausescu ignored the existence of AIDS and took no measures to prevent its spread.

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