Former U.S. president Clinton to visit Cambodia on anti-AIDS mission

Former U.S. president Bill Clinton is to be in Phnom Penh in the next few days to review the work of the Clinton Foundation HIV/AIDS Initiative in Cambodia, according to a statement issued by the initiative on Tuesday.

During his stay, he is also scheduled to visit the Angkor Historical Park and meet Prime Minister Hun Sen, according to local reports.

The Clinton Foundation established its office in Cambodia in June 2005. One of its task is to help increase HIV-positive children's access to certain therapy.

Through the foundation's assistance, the number of Cambodian children receiving treatment for HIV infection has increased from 400 to over 1,200 within the past year, according to its website.

Cambodia has an HIV infection rate of 1.9 percent among its people aged from 15 to 49, almost the highest in Southeast Asia.

His stay in the kingdom is part of a regional tour that will also take him to the Asian countries hit by the Indian Ocean tsunami in Dec. 2004, to complete his duty as former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan's special tsunami envoy.

Source: Xinhua