Perched on a remote peak in the Lesotho highlands, the clinic at Ha Nohana is already crowded when 35-year-old Mokhete arrives in the back of a pickup truck.

He is emaciated, breathless, delirious and frightened. He has HIV and tuberculosis, a lethal cross-infection that is threatening to wipe out an entire generation in this tiny mountain kingdom.

The clinic doctors put Mokhete on a drip and give him oxygen while they urgently discuss the antibiotic treatment that he should have. But it is too late. Mokhete takes half a dozen deep breaths and dies on the hospital bed.

The doctors are visibly upset. Mokhete was known to them. He had an HIV test at the clinic in the spring but had not returned for treatment. He came again in the summer with a cough and arranged to return for TB tests and antibiotics. But his village was almost a day’s walk from the clinic and he had not come back until today. “This was a completely avoidable death. We have all the drugs here that we need to treat this man,” said Jennifer Furin, a doctor from Boston, now close to tears. “If we could get out to the villages, if we had been able to go and find him when he did not show up for his tests, he would still be alive. This is very distressing for us.”

More than 30 per cent of the population in the Lesotho highlands is HIV positive, and TB is rife among the infected. There is no shortage of antiretroviral drugs and antibiotics to treat the diseases at this well-stocked clinic. But there is a lack of vehicles capable of navigating the steep, rocky trails of the highlands. That is now the main obstacle facing medical staff.

Thanks to Riders for Health, the international charity chosen for this year’s Timesappeal, this barrier is about to be removed.

Dozens of Honda CTX200 motorcycles, powerful enough to cope with the terrain, will arrive in Lesotho in January after a donation from the Elton John Aids Foundation. Dr Furin and her colleagues will make the six-hour journey to Maseru, the capital city, for an intensive course of riding lessons. The programme has been created by Riders for Health to allow them to cope with rugged, mountainous country. Crucially, Riders for Health will then maintain the bikes at Ha Nohana. Its preventative maintenance programme guarantees that no bike will be off the road.

The bikes will transform the way that health care is provided in the highlands. Although the clinic is always busy, Jonas Rigodon, a Haitian doctor who moved here in the summer, says that he intends to double the number of home visits that he makes once his Honda arrives, and will seek out patients such as Mokhete who fail to show up for tests.

He also plans to bring the services of the clinic to remote villages so that pregnant women, new mothers and the sick do not have to trudge for hours for checks and treatment.

The Times accompanied Dr Rigodon on foot to see an HIV/TB patient in a village close to the clinic. Although only about two miles (three kilometres) away, the round trip to the mud hut of Makheleme, a 50-year-old woman with HIV and TB, took more than two hours. It was exhausting in the fierce heat of the midday sun. In winter, thick snow and ice make travelling even more daunting. Once the bikes arrive, the journey to Makheleme’s village and back will take less than 40 minutes.

Dr Rigodon is so eager to get on his bike that he is cutting short his Christmas holiday in Haiti to be back in time for lessons. “The bikes are the difference between life and death out here,” he said. “They will come too late for Mokhete, but many other lives will be saved.”

CVC Capital Partners is matching all donations made by Times readers to Riders for Health. That means for every pound donated, Riders will receive £2.

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