Mr Mandela’s appeal will be broadcast to about two billion people in 166 countries, and will come during a film of a huge pop concert held in Cape Town on Saturday night, when the former South African President shared the stage with some of pop music’s biggest stars, including Bono, Beyoncé Knowles, Peter Gabriel, Ms Dynamite, the Corrs, Queen, Anastacia and the Eurythmics.

Addressing the crowd of 40,000 in Greenpoint Stadium, within sight of Robben Island where he was imprisoned for 18 years, Mr Mandela said that the concert was just the beginning of his campaign, named 46664 after his prison number. He said: “Musicians played an important part in the campaign to liberate our country. This time I am asking them to join forces to free our world from HIV/Aids and bring hope for the new century.” Aids was no longer just a disease, he said. Like apartheid, it had become “a human rights issue”.

Since his retirement from politics, Mr Mandela has campaigned for retroviral Aids drugs to be available to African sufferers. In a recent breakthrough, Thabo Mbeki, his successor as President of South Africa, announced that medicines will be distributed free, thanks to financial support from the former US President Bill Clinton’s charitable foundation.

Writing in South Africa’s Sunday Independent, Mr Clinton said that “nothing less than the future of Africa is at stake”, and that Aids was causing incalculable damage not only to Africa’s health but to the continent’s economy and security.

Mr Mandela came late to the Aids cause. The disease increased under his presidency while he was preoccupied with building a post-apartheid republic. Since 1991, the prevalence of HIV in South Africa has risen from less than 1 per cent of the population to more than 20 per cent. Five million of the estimated 30 million Africans with HIV live in South Africa. But he is making up for lost time. The viewing figures for the 46664 concert are expected to exceed those for such famous 1980s charity events as Live Aid.

Bob Geldof, a veteran of both events, told the audience: “We’re here because a frail old gent who is one of the few giants of our planet summoned us and you can’t deny him.”

Walking on stage with a stick, Mr Mandela, 85, was greeted with louder cheers than any of the musicians. He sat beaming throughout the five-hour concert, although his eyes brimmed when Peter Gabriel and Youssou N’Dour performed a song about his old ANC colleague Steve Biko, who died in prison in the 1970s.

Footage of the 46664 concert has been made available free to television companies to raise awareness of the campaign. The fundraising will come later when a double CD and DVD are released in February. The CD will include Mr Mandela taking the place of Freddie Mercury, the late singer with Queen, when his voice is sampled by the group on a song called Invincible Hope.

A further CD will be released in June, featuring new songs written for the campaign by Sir Paul McCartney, Bono and Sting, among others.

QUEEN HELP OUT

The rock group Queen are making their back catalogue available on the internet, with royalties going to fund Aids research.

Fans will be able to digitally download all of the band’s songs from online retailers. The tracks will be available from today to coincide with World Aids Day.

The Queen singer Freddie Mercury died of an Aids-related illness in 1991. Since then the remaining members of the band have dedicated themselves to raising money for research into the disease.

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