Annie Lennox on her work for Nelson Mandela's campaign against AIDS.

Annie Lennox, former Eurythmics frontwoman ...Jeff Overs/BBC

ANDREW MARR: Welcome.

ANNIE LENNOX: Thank you. Thank you.

ANDREW MARR: Just because, you know we've been listening to what's been going on in Kenya and we know about Darfur.

It's very easy to forget the scale of the Aids pandemic. Can you just put it into context for us?

ANNIE LENNOX: I think that's the real issue is that it's actually almost impossible for us to imagine that more people have died through the effects of HIV and Aids in Africa than the combined figures of two world wars.

ANDREW MARR: That's astonishing.

ANNIE LENNOX: Yeah.

ANDREW MARR: And it means the average age now is very, very, of survival in Africa is incredibly low?

ANNIE LENNOX: Yes. Life expectancy in many parts of Africa can be something around the age of thirty five to thirty eight. I mean you're very fortunate if you live to that age. In fact when I went to Uganda for the first time one of the things that occurred to me was that I saw very few elderly people.

Most people are young and they're going up to that, that age. I actually physically saw it there for myself. And standing in the middle of town looking around thinking one in five people are HIV positive here. One in five people are HIV positive. It really brings it home.

ANDREW MARR: Now a lot of African leaders have been very slow to grasp this issue. But Nelson Mandela has been hugely important.

ANNIE LENNOX: Yes.

ANDREW MARR: Just tell us about why that is.

ANNIE LENNOX: That's right. It took Mandela a little bit of time to figure out what was actually happening with Aids because obviously he'd just come into power and there were so many things to assess.

But finally when he realised what was actually happening in his country he really grasped it. And he decided to use people like myself, people that have got some kind of you know access to a broader audience.

And I think he did the modern think which is to get, try to make an event happen which was the four double six six four campaign. Basically four double six six four was Mandiba's prison number, former prison number on Robben Island. So he used this title for his HIV/Aids Foundation which he set up about four years ago.

ANDREW MARR: One of his sons died, I think, of Aids, didn't he?

ANNIE LENNOX: Yeah I mean it really brings it home to you. It's not something that is just a rare event. This is something that actually everyone across the whole continent in Africa is either affected by Aids or infected.

ANDREW MARR: And to start to turn this around it obviously needs a large amount of money for the retroviral drugs, anti-retroviral drugs, and education. Does it also need a different attitude from a lot of the current politicians?

ANNIE LENNOX: Well that �

ANDREW MARR: � he said cautiously.

ANNIE LENNOX: � that was the anomaly that I actually discovered when I went to South Africa because I realised that Mbeki the president of South Africa had taken up the denialist stance, actually saying that HIV virus doesn't transmit into full blown Aids and it was just something you know that I actually, I couldn't believe. And I started to sort of explore the issue.

The more I've spent with the issue the more I've come to understand. His Health Minister has said that ARV treatment is more toxic than the actual Aids virus itself and will kill you more effectively. So there's this very, very odd attitudes towards Aids.

ANDREW MARR: And this, and this is coming I have to say from ..

ANNIE LENNOX: Directly from the top.

ANDREW MARR: .. from male politicians at the top.

ANNIE LENNOX: Ah, yes.

ANDREW MARR: And on this new, this new ...

ANNIE LENNOX: But not only. The Health Minister is female.

ANDREW MARR: The Health Minister is female and she believes the same thing? It's Sing, which is a very strong anthem that you've written. You got in touch with a lot of other female artists around the world.

ANNIE LENNOX: Yes.

ANDREW MARR: Brought them together to do this.

ANNIE LENNOX: Yes. The thing is that I realise that HIV Aids is affecting women so badly that actually the rising amounts of people becoming infected by the virus are actually ... it's more and more women, and of course children. One in three pregnant women in South Africa have the virus.

And if only they could get access to treatment that would mean the whole generation of babies being born could be born free without the Aids, the HIV virus just to start off their lives.

I mean when you start to look at HIV and Aids in the context of endemic, chronic and endemic poverty you realise that it is on such a scale, such a difficult thing to tackle, especially when politicians are taking this denialist stance, a very complex issue but something nevertheless that Mandela describes as a genocide.

And I feel that in my lifetime as a woman I need to try to do whatever I can in my own context, you know to do something, to bring attention and awareness to this terrible thing.

ANDREW MARR: And do you feel also you've, you know you have this huge profile from, from rock music over the years that it's all, it's kind of incumbent upon you to use some of that to actually change things in the wider world that you know people could have a go at rock musicians with consciences.

ANNIE LENNOX: Yeah. Well I have no other choice for myself. You say incumbent but actually for me it's an honour. It's a way of giving back. It's a way of contributing. It's a way of utilising whatever intelligence and creative skills I have to engage with something that I'm really passionate about.

ANDREW MARR: Annie Lennox. Thank you very much for the time being. You're going to join us at the end of the programme but for now thank you very much indeed.

INTERVIEW ENDS

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