Former US president Bill Clinton will launch a major initiative in Kenya Saturday to counter HIV infections among children in the east African country.

"This initiative, as part of the foundation's global goal to have 10,000 children on anti-retroviral treatment (ART) by the end of 2005, will focus on getting an additional 1,000 Kenyan children who are HIV positive on appropriate medications," a statement from the Clinton Foundation said here Friday.

The statement said the initiative, carried out in close collaboration with the Kenyan health authorities, would effectively double the number of children in the country on ART.

Clinton, who began a weeklong six-nation tour of Africa last Sunday, arrived in Kenya Friday and is scheduled to meet senior government officials including President Mwai Kibaki.

Clinton's trip has taken him to Mozambique, Lesotho and South Africa and Tanzania. He will leave Kenya for Rwanda Saturday.

The Clinton Foundation's work in Africa has concentrated on helping governments' design and implement AIDS treatment programmes, with special focus on children, rural areas and widening access to affordable AIDS drugs.

The foundation is spending some $10 million on AIDS-affected children this year, mainly in rural Africa.

According to the UN AIDS programme, sub-Saharan Africa is home to more than 60 percent of people around the world living with HIV. In 2004, an estimated 3.1 million more people in the region were infected.