Anti-Aids drugs should be made affordable, President Moi yesterday said.

He directed Public Health Minister Sam Ongeri to liase with pharmaceutical companies operating in Kenya in an effort to have the prices lowered.

"Where will the (pharmaceutical companies) sell their drugs when everybody is dead? They have to be considerate," President Moi said.

The President said Aids was a disaster, killing 28 Kenyans on average every hour.

"It threatens to wipe out the entire population," he said at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport upon arrival from Abuja, Nigeria, where he attended a conference on the African Aids crisis

Kenya, with a million people reportedly infected with HIV, the virus that causes Aids, is among countries hard-stricken by the scourge.

Although the disease has no cure, a concoction of drugs can delay its onset by as many as 10 years.

President Moi said: "We have to declare war on Aids. And to do this we have to discard those traditions that fuel promiscuity." 

Kenyans were aware of the deadly disease but had refused to change their attitudes, he added.

The Abuja summit, addressed by former American President Bill Clinton, focused also on possible ways of making anti-Aids therapy cheaper. South Africa has allowed the import of generic drugs to combat the epidemic.

Before President Moi's arrival at the airport, State House officials barred former Minister Paul Ngei from sitting at the presidential dias. They gave reason.