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Gates, Clinton and Lewis on AIDS visit

    JOHANNESBURG
    Microsoft founder Bill Gates, former US president Bill Clinton and the UN Special Envoy for AIDS in Africa, Stephen Lewis, are to assess the HIV/AIDS situation in Lesotho this week. According to Agence France-Presse, this would be the first visit by Gates to the tiny southern African mountain kingdom, where an estimated 26 percent of the population is living with HI virus. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which has pledged huge sums of money to tackling the global epidemics of tuberculosis (TB), AIDS and malaria, recently received a US$31 billion donation from billionaire Warren Buffet to boost their philanthropic efforts. During their one-day visit on Wednesday, the international delegates will visit an AIDS treatment site supported by the Clinton Foundation at the Mafeteng government hospital in the south of the country. Gates is then expected to meet with South African scientists participating in the global effort to develop a new TB vaccine, and liaise with local experts testing microbicide gels being developed to protect women from contracting HIV.

    This article was produced by IRIN News while it was part of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Please send queries on copyright or liability to the UN. For more information: https://shop.un.org/rights-permissions

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