Clinton says
Africa faces serious shortage of HIV caregivers

On Wednesday former U.S. president Bill Clinton told a Tanzanian audience, "We can get you the medicine you need and do the same for other countries in Africa, but the most important barrier to scaling up the treatment of antiretroviral therapy is the lack of well-trained people in every country."

"You just can't get the medicine, ship it into a country, and drop it from the sky," Clinton added. "If it is going to save people's lives, the medicine must be accompanied by instructions, monitoring, by follow-up, and changing the medicine if necessary."

Clinton--whose foundation will spend some $10 million on AIDS-affected children this year, mainly in rural Africa--spoke at the launch of a program to train 30 medical staff annually to work in remote regions of Africa. Tanzanian president Benjamin Mkapa attended the event.

Africa has the lowest number of doctors per person in the world and the highest prevalence of diseases such as HIV, malaria, and tuberculosis. Sub-Saharan Africa averages 12.5 doctors per 100,000 people. Many medical professionals seek better salaries and working conditions in Europe and the United States.

Mkapa predicts that by 2008, Tanzania would have a 20% staffing shortfall for the country's HIV care and treatment plan. Twenty-five percent of the 2 million HIV-positive Tanzanians have developed AIDS. Just 20,000 are on government-provided antiretroviral therapy. Tanzania hopes to boost that to 44,000 by the end of 2005. (Retuers)