Bush hails Aids work

George Bush marked World Aids Day by paying tribute to the work undertaken by the President's Emergency Plan for Aids Relief (Pepfar).

The US has a significant HIV/Aids problem, with more than one million citizens known to be infected and a recent report suggesting infection rates were far higher than official figures showed.

Pepfar, however, has not just focused on the US, it has also helped to provide treatment and preventative measures to people around the world.

When President Bush launched the initiative in 2004 its stated aim was to provide care for two million people affected by HIV/Aids within five years.

He announced on Monday that Pepfar has already helped more ten million people around the world - including many in sub-Saharan Africa, where treatment was previously hard to come by - with two million of them still receiving support today.

"More than 237,000 babies have been born HIV-free, thanks to the support of the American people for programmes to prevent mothers from passing the virus on to their children," the outgoing US president added.

In July this year the US government agreed to extend Pepfar for five years until 2013 and provide $39 billion (£26 billion) to support it and the Global Fund to Fight HIV/Aids, Tuberculosis and Malaria.

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