Former US President Bill Clinton ended his two day visit to Mozambique on Monday.

The visit was the first stage of a six nation African trip, concerned with his foundation's work on AIDS in Africa.

During his stay here, Clinton met with the Mozambican Prime Minister Luisa Diogo. Diogo praised Clinton as "a great friend of Mozambique," whose work against HIV/AIDS was making the life saving anti-retroviral treatment accessible to Mozambican patients.

Thanks to the Clinton foundation's work, Diogo said, the price of anti-retroviral drugs had fallen from over 400 dollars to just 140 dollars per patient per year, and there were hopes that prices would decline further.

Diogo added that it is estimated that AIDS is now costing Mozambique the equivalent of one percent of its GDP every year.

Clinton said he believed it was possible to meet the Mozambican targets for reducing the spread of AIDS. Currently, there are an estimated 500 new infections with HIV in Mozambique every day - the Mozambican government wants to bring this down to 350 by 2009 and to 150 by 2014.

The Clinton Foundation is concentrating its support particularly on children suffering from HIV. Therefore, Clinton visited the pediatric day hospital in the premises of the Maputo Central Hospital, where he could meet HIV-positive children and their parents.

The Foundation, together with the Irish government, UNICEF and an Italian NGO, are working with the Mozambican Health Ministry to set up a second specialist pediatric unit in the Mozambican central city of Beira.

Source: Xinhua