Former US President Bill Clinton met with a number of Chinese AIDS patients on Thursday. Clinton is on a private tour.

Clinton met in the morning with eight children in Zhengzhou, capital of central China's Henan Province.

The children, aged between 7 and 12, were selected from 83 children living in the province who receive medical treatment and drugs donated by the Clinton Foundation.

Liu Xuezhou, vice director of the provincial health bureau, told Clinton that these 83 children have responded positively to treatment received in July.

Clinton praised the bureau and the Henan government for their efforts and achievements in combating HIV/AIDS, stressing that children should get specialized pediatric treatment and medicine because their bodies are different.

Henan, one of the provinces with a serious HIV/AIDS problem, was the first in China to receive pediatric drugs from the Clinton Foundation, according to Ruby Shang, director of the foundation's China office.

About 200 children benefit from such drugs nationwide, according to Shang.

Geng Long, one of the eight children, said in his thank-you letter to Clinton that his "skin diseases had faded away" since he began taking the drugs in July. 

Since leaving office in 2001, the former US president has been engaged in delivering HIV therapies to needy countries through the Clinton Foundation, a non-governmental organization.

The foundation's China AIDS project and its donation of pediatric drugs followed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) between the foundation and China's Health Ministry.

Under the MOU, the foundation agreed to provide technical assistance in AIDS care and treatment to China.

After meeting with the children, Clinton delivered a keynote speech.

He said that although China had made great achievements in the past two decades in many fields, it still faces tough challenges in energy procurement, environmental protection, public health and political reform.

Completing his less than 12-hour tour of Zhengzhou, Clinton flew to Kunming, capital of southwest China's Yunnan Province, where he met some adult AIDS patients in a hospital and visited the provincial disease control center.

"Many projects are helpful and should serve more people. It's healthy and safe here," Clinton commented.

Yunnan and the foundation started a three-year project in June to provide treatment to AIDS sufferers in the remote areas of Yunnan.

Clinton is scheduled to leave for Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region in northwest China late Thursday night.

(Xinhua News Agency September 9, 2005)