Leading world pharmaceutical group to inject $100 million to fight AIDS in Africa

One of the world's leading pharmaceutical groups will inject over the five coming years $100 million in AIDS control programs in five sub-Saharan African countries.

The group, Bristol-Myers Squibb, which made the announcement in Washington on Thursday, said the funds will finance research programs, training sessions and medical treatment to AIDS-affected patients in the continent.

The AIDS virus is ravaging sub-Saharan Africa, where four infected persons out of five die, said the managing director of the American group, Charles Heimbold. He said his group, which is one of the largest manufacturers of anti-AIDS drugs, deems it a "moral duty" to remedy the situation and help the AIDS patients to live on.

He said the program, dubbed "Secure the Future," will be mainly targeting women and children in South Africa, Botswana, Namibia, Lesotho and Swaziland, the most severely affected countries in Africa.

Two-thirds out of the 34 million aids affected persons in the world are living in sub-Saharan Africa where the epidemic has already killed 11.5 million persons since the disease was detected in the early 1980s.