Former president Bill Clinton, left, with Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, before a meeting in New Delhi, on Nov. 21. Clinton was on a two-day private visit to discuss with leaders and officials assistance to check the spread of HIV/AIDS in India. (Photo: AFP)

NEW DELHI: Former U.S. President Bill Clinton on Nov. 21 urged Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee to commit his government to fund an initiative he has launched to provide treatment for HIV/AIDS at cheaper prices.

Vajpayee hosted a lunch at his official residence for Clinton, who was on a two-day private visit to the country. External Affairs Minister Yashwant Sinha and Health Minister Sushma Swaraj were among the invitees. “It was a courtesy call by the former president,” an official of the Prime Minister’s Office said.

During his third visit to India in four years, Clinton, who is the honorary president of the American-Indian Foundation, also visited the satellite town of Gurgaon in Haryana, located near New Delhi, to launch what he described as a “giant initiative” to provide cheaper drugs for treatment of HIV/AIDS.

The William Jefferson Clinton Foundation, which oversees the creation of infrastructure for treating HIV/AIDS patients, signed an agreement with three Indian and one South African pharmaceutical firms to make available HIV/AIDS treatment to patients in Africa and the Caribbean at $140 per person per year or at 36 to 38 cents per person per day, against the existing 80 cents per person per day. “This (the deal) will in effect cut the cost for most people in most countries. The most important thing is...(we must) avoid having 100 million AIDS cases by 2010, which will be catastrophic.” An estimated two million people in Africa and the Caribbean are likely to benefit from this initiative over the next four years.

Clinton said patients in India would, however, not benefit from the initiative as New Delhi is yet to commit funds for the purpose.

Though there was no word from either side about Vajpayee’s response to Clintons’ request, the latter himself sounded optimistic when he spoke to reporters earlier. “Give us (the Clinton Foundation) 72 hours. We are working on it. We are meeting officials of the Health Ministry and the prime minister and we hope to have something positive for you,” Clinton said during a media interaction after announcing the initiative.

Clinton, who came here for the first time as president in March 2000, followed by a visit to Gujarat in 2001 in the wake of a devastating earthquake there, said he hadd discussions on the issue with the Indian government two years ago and had noted “a much higher level of interest and commitment.”

Under the initiative, African and Caribbean countries will purchase in bulk HIV/AIDS drugs manufactured by India’s Ranbaxy Laboratories Ltd, Cipla, Matrix Laboratories and South Africa’s Aspen Pharmacare, while the Clinton Foundation will assist in creating infrastructure for treating patients. No figures were, however, mentioned of the money committed by governments or the Clinton Foundation.

“We can turn the epidemic around in three years. It’s a question of putting all the pieces together and getting on with the job. It’s a question of how long governments will take to get their act together,” Clinton maintained.

Pointing to the “staggering dimensions” of the HIV/AIDS scourge, Clinton said just about 300,000 people were being treated globally against some six million patients.

“Of these 300,000, about half are in Brazil and are benefiting from a government initiative. That means only some 170,000 people are being treated in other countries. Of these, 50,000 are in Africa where there are four million patients.”

More than 25 million people have already succumbed to the disease worldwide which is incurable and always fatal. Reuters quoted experts as saying that AIDS is spreading at a rate that will push India past South Africa in absolute numbers in the next few years. South Africa has more than five million people infected with the HIV/AIDS virus, the highest in the world.

Replying to a query from a reporter, Clinton said that the manner in which AIDS had cut short millions of lives across the world had affected him deeply and spurred him on help combat the deadly disease. “My attitude towards life is I am lucky to be alive,” an emotion-charged former president declared. “My father died when he was 29. When I crossed that age, I said to myself: ‘Here it comes.’ If I die today it’s no big deal, I’ve lived a full life.

“But when someone, particularly a child dies of AIDS, or it is transmitted by a mother to her unborn child, or teachers die of AIDS, that’s a gross travesty,” the 57-year-old Clinton said. “When all these young are dying, it’s a travesty. It’s bad for society and for freedom.”

He said the death of a friend in the 1980s had woken him up to the danger posed by HIV/AIDS. “I went to see him in hospital and saw him lying there with sores all over him. That’s when I said I have to do something about this.” During his second term in office that ended in 2000, the U.S. had cut by half the rate of death from HIV/AIDS, he said.

Ranbaxy CEO D.S. Brar complimented Clinton for creating a platform to enable the creators of wealth to pay back to society. “Through this initiative, we have become stake holders in civil society.”