Blair: Aids fight is a moral duty

Tony Blair was today unveiling a campaign for a renewed international drive to combat Aids.

The call came after a huge pop concert in South Africa hosted by Nelson Mandela at the weekend to mark World Aids Day.

Launching the UK Call for Action on HIV/Aids, Mr Blair argued that fighting the disease was not only a moral duty, but also in the national interest of countries in the developed world.

Writing today, the Prime Minister stated: "Unless we act now and decisively, the deepening poverty and instability (caused by the disease) will reach far beyond the parts of the world worst affected."

Mr Blair said he was proud of Britain's record, pointing to its position as the second biggest bilateral donor - after the US - on HIV/Aids.

But Mr Blair, writing in The Sun today, warned: "We can't rest on these achievements. There is too much ground to make up, far too much to do, as President Bush and I discussed with African and international experts at Downing Street on his visit to the UK."

Consequently, Mr Blair said, the Government was today publishing the call for action, setting out the further steps it plans to take in the run-up to the UK's presidencies of the G8 - the grouping of the world's leading industrialised countries - and the European Union.

Details of the initiative were being unveiled by International Development Secretary Hilary Benn. World Aids Day is marked by events around the globe, and one the highest profile was Cape Town's concert, which featured Miss Dynamite, Beyonce and Bono - as well as Peter Gabriel, The Eurythmics.

More than 30,000 people, among them Oprah Winfrey and Richard Branson, filled Cape Town's Greenpoint Stadium for the show, part of Mandela's 46664 campaign, named after his prison number under apartheid.

Mr Mandela, dressed in a black shirt with the number emblazoned on his chest, said: "For the 18 years that I was in prison on Robben Island I was supposed to be reduced to that number.

"Millions infected with HIV/AIDS are in danger of being reduced to mere numbers if we don't act now. They are serving a prison sentence for life."

The concert is to be broadcast globally today.

One of the stars, Anastacia, visited nearby Nazareth House after the concert - where orphaned and abused children with HIV are cared for.

Another of the stars of the show was Queen, whose lead singer Freddie Mercury died of an Aids-related illness. Now the band have made their back catalogue available on the internet with royalties going to fund Aids research.

The annual fundraising day follows recent figures which showed that an estimated 40 million people around the world were now infected with HIV.