Johannesburg, South Africa ? South Africa’s hero, former President Nelson Mandela, and the world’s richest man, Bill Gates, called Monday on the African nation’s youth to fight AIDS as previous generations battled apartheid.

The two, along with their wives, made the appeal to a gathering of university students, urging them to fight the disease that is spreading most quickly among the nation’s young people.

“The fight against AIDS will indeed require another social revolution,” Mandela said. “Once more, the youth of our country are called upon to play a leading role in a social revolution, as they did so heroically in the revolutionary struggle against apartheid.”

Just as in a war, Mandela said, alliances and partnerships are needed for victory.

Gates, the Microsoft tycoon who has pledged to use much of his fortune to improve global health, is considered such an ally, especially in Africa, where his foundation has directed much of the money earmarked for the global fight on AIDS.

Monday’s gathering took place as the U.N. General Assembly met in New York to review progress in the two years since a historic 2001 special session set a series of goals in combatting the disease. It concluded the world’s financial and political response has been woefully inadequate, with shortfalls on expanding access to drugs, caring for AIDS orphans, ending discrimination and preventing the transmission of the disease from mothers to their children.

In Johannesburg, the students welcomed Gates and his wife, Melinda, and Mandela and his wife, Graca Machel, with a song of praise for Mandela made popular in 1990, after his release from 27 years in prison by the white, racist regime.

Since leaving office in 1999, Mandela has been outspoken in calling for action against the AIDS pandemic in South Africa. An estimated 5 million South Africans are infected with HIV — more people than in any other country in the world.

Bill and Melinda Gates have made combatting AIDS one of the main commitments of their multibillion-dollar foundation. In Botswana, they gave $50 million to the first effort to provide free AIDS drugs on a wide scale in Africa and contributed $25 million to AIDS prevention in Nigeria.

Former South African President Nelson Mandela, left and his wife, Graca Machel, second from left, talk to Bill and Melinda Gates at the end of a youth forum on HIV/AIDS at the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa. Mandela and Gates joined together Monday to ask South Africa's youths to fight AIDS, comparing the fight to previous generations' battle against apartheid.

They are in South Africa calling for greater leadership and resources to fight the pandemic.

Melinda Gates commended the forum of about 100 university students for rising above the stigma associated with AIDS in South Africa and speaking out.

“This is what needs to happen in your country … We need people desperately to speak out about AIDS,” she said.

In traditional African societies, sex is not spoken about openly, and those with AIDS are often blamed for bringing the disease upon themselves.

“We need a fundamental change of mind-set with regards to the way we speak and behave about sex and sexuality,” Mandela told the young people. “Boys and men have a particularly critical role in this regard, changing the chauvinist and demeaning ways sexuality and women were traditionally dealt with.”

Gates asked the students why so many of their friends were reluctant to be tested for HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.

The students said they feared finding out their status because in South Africa, treatment is still not available through the public health care system.