Bush Visits With AIDS Patients in Nigeria

President Bush chose a nation where about 1 million children have been orphaned by AIDS as the place to wrap up his five-nation tour of a continent struggling to contain the disease.

Bush was meeting privately Saturday with President Olusegun Obasanjo, and Liberia, trade and AIDS were high on the agenda. White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said he did not expect a decision Saturday on sending U.S. troops to help keep the peace in Liberia.

Bush also was meeting with HIV/AIDS patients before closing the trip with remarks at an annual summit that focuses on development in sub-Saharan Africa.

Bush’s five-day tour took him to corners of Africa most devastated by the HIV/AIDS pandemic that has killed thousands and has made orphans out of countless others. Nearly 30 million live with HIV/AIDS.

In private meetings with the leaders of Senegal, South Africa, Botswana and Uganda, Bush praised their AIDS awareness efforts but urged them to do more to help their countries and the continent overcome the often-fatal disease.

The president also promoted new legislation that would distribute up to $15 billion dollars over five years to the 14 hardest-hit African and Caribbean countries.

“The AIDS virus does its worst harm in an atmosphere of secrecy,” Bush said Friday in Uganda, acknowledging the harm some African leaders cause their own people by failing to speak out about the AIDS crises within their borders.

One in four Africans – about 129 million people – live in Nigeria, making it Africa’s largest country. Its HIV/AIDS infection is low, about 5 percent. But the White House says experts fear the rate could jump to about 25 percent by the end of the decade.

Following six grafs EMBARGOED until 10:06 a.m. EDT

In his weekly radio address, Bush called on Congress to move quickly to provide funds for his $15 billion AIDS proposal. “Africa has the will to fight AIDS, but it needs the resources as well,” Bush said.

“More than 4 million people require immediate drug treatment, but just 1 percent of them are receiving the medicine they require. Africa has the will to fight AIDS, but it needs the resources as well.”

A House committee voted last week to approve about $2 billion of Bush’s program for the budget year that begins Oct. 1, a first installment on the $15 billion five-year pricetag.

Even though that was about $1 billion less than the president had originally sought, Bush called it “an important step to fund the first year of this effort.”

Summing up his five-day, five-nation trip, Bush called Africa “a continent of great challenge and promise.”

“Progress in Africa depends on peace and stability, so America is standing with friends and allies to help end regional wars,” Bush said. Also during the trip he sought the cooperation of African leaders in the war on terrorism. “We will not permit terrorists to threaten African peoples, or to use Africa as a base to threaten the world.”

End EMBARGOED material

Bush and Obasanjo were also expected to discuss the civil unrest in Liberia.

Obasanjo, whose first election win in 1999 ended 15 years of brutal and corrupt military rule, has been hailed as the man who restored democracy to Nigeria. But the former military ruler’s re-election in April was marred by fraud and scattered violence.

Bush has been under pressure to send U.S. troops to lead an international peacekeeping force there. But Secretary of State Colin Powell suggested this week that American forces would likely go in after an initial deployment of West African troops.

Bush had called for Liberia’s President Charles Taylor to step down and leave the country so that peace can be restored. Taylor has promised to resign and accept asylum in Nigeria – but only after an international force arrives to ensure an orderly transition.

During the visit to Nigeria, Bush plans to tour Abuja National Hospital, a government facility with a successful U.S.-funded program to help prevent women from passing HIV to their children during childbirth. The White House says dozens of HIV-positive women have delivered virus-free babies as a result of the program.

Bush and first lady Laura Bush, who accompanied him on the trip, will also meet women and children who are members of two local HIV/AIDS support groups.

At the summit, which formally opens on Monday, Bush will sum up his first trip to the continent as president. The event is named for the late Leon H. Sullivan, a black clergyman and prominent activist in the U.S. anti-apartheid movement.

Bush traveled to Entebbe, Uganda, on Friday to promote the country’s success in reversing its HIV/AIDS infection rate from 22 percent to 7 percent in just under a decade, according to the United Nations program on AIDS.

He said it was the most dramatic decline in the world.

Bush also praised what he said was President Yoweri Museveni’s aggressive and open approach to battling the disease, and repeated his pledge that the United States will not abandon Africa and its fight against AIDS.

“Africa has the will to fight AIDS but it needs the resources as well,” he said in remarks after touring an AIDS service organization that provides counseling and basic medical services to 30,000 Ugandans a year.

“This is my country’s pledge to Africa: You are not alone in this fight,” Bush said. “America has decided to act.”

He made a similar promise Thursday in Botswana, where four of every 10 adults live with HIV/AIDS, making for the world’s highest infection rate.

Bush’s trip began Tuesday and was crammed meetings with a dozen heads of state and discussions about trade, terrorism and regional conflicts, tours of health centers and businesses, and minimal sightseeing into five days.

In Senegal, he toured the centuries-old slave house where Africans bound for servitude around the world were held until they were shipped out.

In Botswana, Bush rode through a nature reserve in search of elephants, giraffes, cheetahs and rhinos.