Jolie, Pitt donate $2M for Ethiopian clinic

Couple’s clinic will help fight HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis

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Sept. 15: Hollywood stars Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie have donated $2 million to help fight AIDS in Ethiopia. Msnbc.com's Keva Andersen reports.

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updated 1:45 p.m. ET Sept. 15, 2008

NEW YORK - Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt are giving back to the country where their 3-year-old daughter Zahara was born.

The couple have donated $2 million to help fight HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis in Ethiopia, said the Global Health Committee, which announced the donation by the Jolie-Pitt Foundation.

The organization will use the money to build a center in the capital city of Addis Ababa for children affected by the disease and establish a program to treat tuberculosis in children and adults. The center will be named for Zahara.

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The World Health Organization estimates that the African nation has 1.7 million people infected with HIV and 6,000 people infected with drug-resistant tuberculosis.

“It is our hope when Zahara is older she will take responsibility of the clinic and continue its mission,” Pitt, 44, said in a statement.

The couple worked with the Global Health Committee to open the Maddox Chivan Children’s Center in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, named after their oldest son, 7-year-old Maddox, who was adopted from Cambodia. Since February 2006, the center has provided medical treatment, education and social services to children affected by HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis.

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“Our goal is to transfer the success we have had in Cambodia to Ethiopia, where people are needlessly dying of tuberculosis, a curable disease, and HIV/AIDS, a treatable disease,” Jolie, 33, said in a statement Saturday.

The couple’s 4-year-old son Pax was adopted from Vietnam. The couple are also the parents of 2-year-old Shiloh and twins Knox Leon and Vivienne Marcheline, who were born in July.