An Aids — An AIDS free generation would mean no children would be born with HIV and they would have easy access to treatment if they acquired the virus.

December 1 is World AIDS Day, and the United States is working to achieve an AIDS-free generation.

An AIDS-free generation would mean that no children in the world would be born with HIV; that as children become young adults, they would remain at a far lower risk of becoming infected than children today; and if a person did acquire the virus, he or she would get treatment to prevent the development of AIDS or passing the virus to others.

Breaking down the goal into these three parts offers a path to an AIDS-free generation, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton believes, and she has called on the world to join her in working toward the goal.

Clinton believes success lies in a global effort to prevent mother-to-child transmission of HIV; to encourage voluntary medical male circumcision, which would reduce the transmission of HIV to sexual partners; and to make anti-retroviral treatments more widely available.

The South African children here, representing the next generation, celebrated an earlier World AIDS Day by having their faces painted.