Kazakhstan Join's Clinton's Anti-AIDS Initiative
Kazakh President Nazarbaev (file photo)
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7 September 2005 (RFE/RL) -- Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbaev has signed an agreement with former U.S. president Bill Clinton that will improve his country's efforts to fight HIV/AIDS.
The memorandum was signed while Clinton was in Almaty on 6 September. It formally makes Kazakhstan a member in the Clinton Foundation's Procurement Consortium, a group that provides anti-retroviral drugs and HIV/AIDS diagnostic equipment to more than 40 countries at reduced prices.
Nazarbaev said the agreement brings hope to those with AIDS in Kazakhstan.
"The memorandum that was signed today brings hope to those who suffer of AIDS and we can say loudly that they can live their normal lives further on without fear of death -- now they think they necessarily will die," Nazarbaev said. "The medicine which we would be receiving will be one-third the price."
Nazarbaev also donated an undisclosed sum to a new fund established by Clinton and former U.S. president George H.W. Bush to assist people affected by Hurricane Katrina, which devastated the U.S. Gulf Coast on 29 August.
Clinton is in India's Uttar Pradesh state today to promote a health program in a region where encephalitis has killed nearly 500 people.
(AFP/AP/RFE/RL's Kazakh Service)
See also:
"Former U.S. President Clinton Extends AIDS Initiative"