Former U.S. President Bill Clinton inked Wednesday in Hanoi an agreement with the Vietnamese government to provide low-cost medicines needed for treatment of all Vietnamese children having HIV/AIDS in 2007.

Clinton, who officially visited Vietnam in 2000 as the first U. S. president to tour the country after the end of the Vietnam War in 1975, signed the deal with Vietnamese Health Minister Tran Thi Trung Chien.

Before the signing ceremony, Vietnamese State President Nguyen Minh Triet met with Clinton, expressing his hope that the Clinton Foundation will expand cooperation with Vietnam into such other fields as bomb and mine clearance, assistance for Agent Orange victims in the country, and manpower training.

For his part, Clinton said he highly appreciated the Vietnamese government's efforts in preventing and combating HIV/AIDS, and his foundation will keep on assisting Vietnamese children and women to fight against the disease and consider the proposed cooperation on the other fields.

On Wednesday afternoon, Clinton had conversations with Vietnamese youths, including students and people having HIV/AIDS. The two sides talked about fighting the disease and empowering youth in Vietnam.

The Clinton Foundation's HIV/AIDS Initiative (CHAI) strives to make treatment for HIV/AIDS more affordable and to implement large- scale integrated care, treatment and prevention programs. To date, CHAI has helped bring AIDS care and treatment to over 500,000 people living with HIV/AIDS around the world.

Some 7,000 out of more than 20,000 registered AIDS patients in Vietnam currently benefit from free treatment programs funded by the Vietnamese government and international donors. For the remaining over 13,000 patients, they should register for the programs and strictly follow treatment procedures, according to the HIV Prevention Department under the Vietnamese Health Ministry.

Under a national HIV prevention strategy, 70 percent of HIV patients in Vietnam will access free treatment by 2010. The country is facing shortages of doctors, funds, medical equipment and facilities for AIDS treatment.

Vietnam plans to reduce the HIV/AIDS infection rate among its 83-million population to below 0.3 percent by 2010, and keep it unchanged after 2020.

Source: Xinhua