Former US president Bill Clinton launched a drive to provide anti-retroviral (ARV) treatment to 1,000 Kenyan children suffering from HIV/AIDS according to his "Clinton HIV/AIDS Initiative" program.

The Kenyan move is a part of his foundation's global goal to have 10,000 children on the medication by the end of the year.

With Kenyan Health Minister Charity Ngilu, the former US president launched the Clinton Foundation Pediatric HIV/AIDS Initiative at the state-run Mbagathi District Hospital, which has a clinic that specializes in treating the deadly disease.

Clinton said his foundation would work to deliver ARVs, equipment and train Kenyan workers to work in the countryside where thousands of patients are living.

Currently, about 1.2 million Kenyans are living with the virus that causes AIDS. About 44,000 of the more than 200,000 who urgently need ARVs receive the drug. Of those on treatment, only 1,200 are children, according to the Kenyan health ministry.

Clinton, who has already left for his last stop in Rwanda, has also travelled to Mozambique, Lesotho, South Africa, Tanzania and its semi-autonomous island of Zanzibar, to boost his campaign to fight the disease.

While here, the former US president said Kenya was at the forefront in the war against the disease.

"In all the developing countries that we have worked in, there are very few who have done as well as Kenya in combatting AIDS," he said after visiting patients in the hospital.

"By and large, most of these generic medicine costing in the 400-500 dollar range, we can get them at 140 dollars a person a year. We are going to try to make sure you have all the medicine you can responsibly use," Clinton added.

"We also recognize that laboratory capacity is also very poor and we will work very hard to provide laboratory capacity... We are committed to helping you," Clinton said.

"We eventually hope to provide training opportunities to several thousand Kenyan health care workers to go out in the villages for people to get tested and treated where they live. That is very important," he added.

"I will my best to get you... our people will try to get you medicine, the testing equipment, everything we can at the lowest prices available anywhere in the world, but they have to be used. I hope we can get the money," Clinton said.

Ngilu acknowledged that the country cannot win the war against AIDS if it fails to halt new infections.

"We must mantain focus on keeping 93 percent of Kenyans who are HIV negative, negative. We cannot win this war against HIV virus if the number of people who will ultimately require treatment continues to grow," she said.