"AIDS is very important precisely because it attacks the most economically active segment of the population. It can destroy the country's economy," Mandela told reporters after a meeting with Swedish Prime Minister Goran Persson.

Persson, who was among 100 world leaders attending the U.N. World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg, joined the former South African president in raising the AIDS issue.

"There is no sustainable development without children in the country. This is like a plague which could make it impossible for Africa to build human societies," Persson told Reuters.

AIDS activists complained this week the pandemic received scant attention during the summit despite it being held in Africa, the epicentre of the disease.

Africa is by far the worst-hit continent with 28 million of the 40 million people worldwide infected by HIV/AIDS.

Average life expectancy in several countries is heading downwards, and the disease is cutting a swathe through key sectors like agriculture, health, manufacturing and education.

"ATTACK ON AIDS"

The head of the UNAIDS programme Peter Piot said this week AIDS had not been singled out as a particular issue affecting sustainable development, despite the fact that health was one of the summit's five main agenda items.

The world's biggest AIDS conference was held in Barcelona in July and was dominated by demands for more funds to treat millions of people in poor countries.

Piot urged world leaders to mount a "full-scale attack on AIDS" in their final declaration, and said total spending on AIDS programmes should be tripled to $10 billion a year.

Summit host South Africa has the highest number of people living with the HIV/AIDS in the world, with one in nine South Africans, or about 4.74 million people, infected.

Mandela, who last week spoke publicly for the first time of losing close family members to AIDS, is a leading critic of the government's handling of the devastating pandemic.

President Thabo Mbeki has been criticised for questioning the link between the HIV virus and AIDS. The government is testing the drug nevirapine to prevent mother-to-child transmission of the virus, but is still resisting any move to dispense drugs to people with AIDS.