3:34pm UK, Friday October 24, 2003

Former US President Bill Clinton has brokered a deal to provide low cost HIV and Aids drugs to millions of sufferers in developing countries.

Four generic drug companies have agreed to provide the drugs at almost half the current price to nine Caribbean countries - as well as South Africa, Mozambique, Rwanda and Tanzania.

180 Bill Clinton at Labour Conference

Mr Clinton brokered deal

The antiretroviral drugs will be offered at £82 ($140) per person per year - down from the current best rate of £150 ($255).

The plan, organised through the William J Clinton Presidential Foundation, hopes to get cheaper drugs to about two million people by 2008.

Clinton said the agreement was reached by asking countries to develop a plan outlining the resources they needed and the resources they actually had. The Clinton Foundation filled in the gap, Mr Clinton said.

The companies involved were "acting in good faith" by cutting costs and increasing production in affected countries, he said.

Patients in the Dominican Republic and the Bahamas have received the drugs on a limited basis so far.

The drugs involved are the standard first-line treatments for HIV and Aids.