ATLANTA (Reuters) - The world's richest nations must commit billions more each year to fight AIDS in Africa or risk condemning millions on the continent to a perpetual cycle of disease, poverty and death, the United Nations special envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa said on Wednesday.

Describing the West's response to the AIDS pandemic in Africa as "abysmal," UN special envoy Stephen Lewis called on leaders of the G8 nations to pledge both leadership and dollars to help Africans battle the scourge.

Leaders of the G8--Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia and the United States--are scheduled to discuss African development on Thursday during a summit meeting in the Western Canadian resort of Kananaskis.

UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, who is attending the meeting along with several African leaders, has requested that a war chest of between $7 billion and $10 billion per year be established to help pay for AIDS education and antiretroviral AIDS drugs. Only 7% of that amount has been pledged so far.

"It is absolutely inexcusable that the wealthy countries of the world are not prepared to fund the rebirth of a continent," Lewis told Reuters shortly before a presentation at a luncheon hosted by the nonprofit anti-poverty group CARE in Atlanta.

"You will never get the economic growth for which Africa yearns until you deal with the pandemic," said Lewis, a former left-leaning Canadian politician and diplomat who has worked with the United Nations for two decades.

Since assuming a new job last year as Annan's right-hand man on the AIDS front in Africa, Lewis has spent much of his time highlighting the scale of the epidemic with African leaders as well as donors and agencies in the West.

More than 17 million Africans have died of AIDS and 25 million others have been infected with the disease. In sub-Saharan Botswana, for instance, more than one third of residents are infected.

Despite the grim statistics, Lewis said he was confident that most African leaders now were aware of the severity of the public health crisis and were determined to take steps to stop the spread of the disease.

Last year, South African President Thabo Mbeki provoked sharp international criticism when he openly questioned whether HIV caused AIDS and opposed the use of drugs that block transmission of the virus from mothers to children.

Mbeki has since reversed course and vowed to accelerate the educational and medical fight against AIDS.

Development and aid workers also have praised officials in Senegal, Uganda and a handful of other African nations for putting in place campaigns that have slowed the rapid spread of the disease.

Peter Bell, president and chief executive of CARE, which has thousands of workers on the continent, noted that it was critical to link anti-AIDS campaigns with efforts to address other developmental problems, such as poverty, illiteracy and malnutrition.

"It is not sufficient to take a narrowly medical health approach to HIV/AIDS. It needs to be integrated into every one of these sectors in which we work," Bell said.

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