AEGiS-WSJ: While in Africa, Powell Tours AIDS Center, Hears Stories of Its Victims, Promises Action

KAMPALA, Uganda -- Agnes Nyamayarwo lost her husband to AIDS. Her youngest son, who contracted HIV in her womb, died when he was six years old. At the age of 49, Ms. Nyamayarwo knows that she, too, will probably die of the disease.

During the weekend, Ms. Nyamayarwo told her AIDS story to one of the few people in the world able to fight the disease on a grand scale, U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell.

"Instead of caring for my child, I gave him HIV," she said sobbing, as Mr. Powell and his wife, Alma, sat transfixed at an AIDS treatment and counseling center here. "It is much more painful to have an HIV-positive child than not to have any children at all."

Mr. Powell has emerged as one of the Bush administration's most fervent advocates for Africa, and he completed a tour of the continent Monday with a glimpse of hope in the fight against AIDS and a moment of profound poignancy that he promised to convey directly to President Bush. The trip, he told Ugandan AIDS workers and victims, "gave me what I need to go back to Washington and make the case for more resources."

The Bush administration has pledged $200 million for a new global fund aimed at preventing and treating AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis in the Third World, on top of about $480 million in U.S. foreign assistance related to HIV. But the United Nations estimates that such a fund needs to be as much $10 billion a year, and Mr. Powell didn't say how much U.S. aid he would support. He used the visit to Mali, South Africa, Kenya and Uganda to assess the severity of the epidemic, and determine the most effective ways in which foreign assistance can combat it.

¹Powell's Visit to Africa Includes Pressure on Strongmen to Honor Democratic Rule

²U.S. Secretary of State Powell Meets With Ugandan President (May 27)

³Colin Powell Travels to Africa With a Bush Plan to Fight AIDS (May 25)

"Even though there are wars in other parts of the world, even though there's a crisis in the Middle East, even though people are dying in these conflicts around the world, there is no war more serious, there is no war causing more death and destruction ... than the war we see here in sub-Saharan Africa against HIV/AIDS," Mr. Powell said. About 25 million Africans carry the AIDS virus, 70% of the world total.

In South Africa and Kenya, Mr. Powell and his aides sharply reminded their hosts that anti-AIDS efforts fall short if top political leaders don't campaign publicly for safer sexual practices and more humane treatment of those who contract HIV. He ended his trip in Uganda because President Yoweri Museveni recognized the danger of AIDS early and made fighting it his personal priority. More than 30% of pregnant women in Kampala hospitals tested HIV-positive in 1992; the rate has fallen to about 14%, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

"Even in a country with limited resources something can be done," Dr. David Kihumuro, director general of the Ugandan AIDS Commission, told Mr. Powell. "I don't think we have succeeded, but we have made a dent."

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