BILL CLINTON likes to talk about cricket, Su Doku puzzles, catching up with old friends and a bit of foreign travel. One could be forgiven for thinking of a man in the raptures of retirement.

He has read the book, given to him by John Major, about the rules of England’s summer sport, but he still can’t fathom the scoring. “It is a fascinating game,” he says. “I just still don’t get how the scores get so out of whack. It’s more difficult than doing Su Doku puzzles.”

But six years after leaving office, the former President is also taking on some far more knotty problems. They do not make for a sedentary life. Driven by a longstanding passion for global health — borne from “burying friends” killed by Aids in the 1980s and consolidated by more recent encounters with the disease, Mr Clinton is now using his personal clout and charisma to help to take on the HIV pandemic.

The mission brought him to the incongruous setting of Lord’s yesterday, where he spoke about drug availability, stigma, abstinence and the powers of persuasion.

As the figurehead of the Clinton Foundation HIV/Aids Initiative (CHAI), the man famed for magnetic charm hopes to use the allure of former presidential power to transform attitudes towards, and treatment of, the world’s most punishing disease. Mr Clinton defines the project, formed in 2002, as not about generating money, but using the funds available to far more effective ends.

Like Bill Gates, the world’s biggest health philanthropist, Mr Clinton is employing a business approach to charitable work. The foundation focuses on winning over the commitment of drug companies to long-term production of anti-retroviral medicines (ARVs) at discounted rates.

“Our goal has been to take the money available for Aids care and treatment and make it go a lot further by driving the price down,” he said. The results, 250,000 people on treatment through CHAI initiatives, are described as stunning.

Now that the model has been shown to work, efforts are focusing on improving paediatric drugs and access in rural areas in some of the 22 countries in Africa, the Caribbean and Asia where the foundation works.

Mr Clinton believes that mandatory HIV testing must be brought in for any population with infection rates of more than 20 per cent, despite the big problems of stigma. “There needs to be a total rethinking of testing in the Aids community and a real push for it, always with the clear understanding that there will be no discrimination,” he said. “My feeling is, this has to be treated as a public health problem. It is not about rich and poor. It is about the level of infection, and when it reaches a certain point it imperils the entire public health structure and the social stability of the country.”

The United Nations said yesterday that it was less than half way to its goal of getting ARVs to 3 million, but Mr Clinton believes that the foundation’s approach and better testing could make that target achievable within the next year. “I will be disappointed if all of these efforts combined don’t get us there by the end of this year. If it is not achieved it is not because the money is not there.”

The mission, he added, could see him achieve as much, if not more, than when he was in the White House, if he fends off retirement for a few decades longer. “I find this immensely rewarding,” he said. “I made up my mind that I was not going to spend the rest of my life wishing I was still President.”

Asked if his example, described as that of a “one-man NGO”, might be adopted by other world leaders as they reach the end of their term in office, Mr Clinton is emphatic. “If Tony wants to do this, he would be great at it. But it depends how long he wants to keep at it. And once you leave one of these (political) jobs you’ve got to let them go.”

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