Clinton in Zanzibar for Aids
2005-07-21 21:08
Zanzibar - Former United States president Bill Clinton on Thursday arrived in Tanzania's offshore island of Zanzibar as part of his six-nation Africa tour to promote the fight against HIV/Aids.
Clinton was received at the airport by Zanzibar's health minister Salum Juma Osman before heading to talks with the semi-autonomous island's President Abeid Karume.
While here, home to about one million people, Clinton is due to visit an HIV clinic in the main Mnazi Mmoja general hospital and also hold talks with officials from the Zanzibar Association of People Living with HIV/Aids.
In mainland Tanzania on Wednesday, the former US president unveiled a new anti-Aids programme for the East African nation, where he also appealed for aggressive intervention to prevent the spread of the deadly disease and prolong the lives of sufferers.
Opening a new HIV/Aids care centre
He and his host, the Tanzanian president, formally opened the Benjamin William Mkapa national HIV/Aids fellows programme (TMNFP) to recruit and train health care workers in HIV/Aids care and management in rural Tanzania.
The programme, to be funded by Clinton's eponymous foundation, and the Tanzanian and Norwegian government, will train health workers in HIV/Aids clinical care and treatment, administration and management and send them for three-year stints in rural districts around Tanzania, officials said.
Chief among the project's goals is to use at least 30 trainees per year to increase the number of Tanzanians infected with HIV being treated with anti-retroviral (ARV) therapy.
Clinton, who is in Tanzania on the fourth leg of a six-nation Africa tour that has already taken him to Mozambique, Lesotho and South Africa, is due to visit Kenya on Friday and Rwanda on Saturday.