Associated Press - December 2, 2003

Thompson was driven from the airport to the Gisozi Genocide Memorial site on the second leg of a four-nation tour of Africa, the continent hit hardest by HIV/AIDS. His trip is focusing on assessing existing projects and determining what needs to be done to increase treatment and prevent the spread of the pandemic.

"We will do everything in our power ... to protect you and find a therapy for everyone here," Thompson told AIDS victims at a health center in Kigali.

"We want to see what programs are working and then fund those programs and be able to get anti-retroviral drugs to people that need it as soon as possible," Thompson said after meeting Rwandan President Paul Kagame.

The U.S. is keen to support programs seeking to prevent the transmission of the deadly virus from mother to child, Thompson said.

"What we have to do is not only protect the child from becoming sick with the virus, but also making sure that the mother lives so that the child has a mother to ... help raise it," Thompson said.

Africa south of the Sahara is home to more than 26 million of the 40 million people worldwide living with HIV. Only about 1% have access to life-prolonging drugs widely available in wealthier countries.

At least 13% of Rwanda's 8.2 million people are infected with HIV/AIDS, and the tiny central African nation will ask for more help from the U.S. to tackle the crisis, said Innocent Nyaruhirira, minister of state in charge of HIV/AIDS and related diseases.

Rwanda has one of the highest numbers of orphans per population in the world as a result of HIV/AIDS and the 1994 genocide in which more than 500,000 people were killed, mainly minority Tutsis and political moderates from the Hutu majority. The 100-day slaughter was spurred by the extremist Hutu government then in power.

Thompson is accompanied by top U.S. health officials, lawmakers and business leaders on his tour, which began in Zambia and will continue to Kenya and Uganda.

Those accompanying him include Richard Holbrooke, president of the Global Business Coalition for HIV/AIDS, a group which is working to encourage companies to contribute to the fight against the disease among their employees in Africa and other developing nations.

The arrival of the U.S. delegation in Rwanda shows that the country has made progress in rebuilding and reconciliation since the genocide nine years ago, Holbrooke said.

"It may seem ironic to you that one would say that talking about AIDS is progress," Holbrooke said. "But this is one country where it truly can be said."
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