Annan calls for war against Aids

The United Nations Secretary General, Kofi Annan, has told African leaders that they must wage an all-out war against the epidemic of Aids sweeping the continent.

The Secretary General, speaking in Addis Ababa at an international conference on HIV and Aids, said the world had been too slow to respond to the epidemic, which had already killed fifteen million people in sub-Saharan Africa, and infected another twenty-five million.

But he said there was still time to halt, and even to reverse, the spread of Aids.

Mr Annan said that there must be a complete social mobilisation against the virus - but African governments must make sure that the money used to fight it was spent where it was most needed.

From the newsroom of the BBC World Service