c. 2006 Religion News Service
(UNDATED) Ten years ago, the World Council of Churches said the AIDS pandemic “exposes the complicity and complacency of churches, challenging them to be better involved, more active, and more faithful.”
On the eve of World AIDS Day on Friday (Dec. 1), religious leaders, citing a new report by the United Nations, are cautiously optimistic that the moral and political will to fight the pandemic is being finally being mobilized.
The statistics, however, are sobering, and religious groups vow to keep pushing politicians toward increased action _ and spending _ against the disease.
The U.N.’s 2006 AIDS Epidemic Update said the HIV epidemic is growing, with an estimated 39.5 million people worldwide infected with the deadly virus. In addition, the report said:
_ 2.3 million of those living with HIV are children under the age of 15.
_ 4.3 million became newly infected last year, 530,000 of them children.
_ 2.9 million died of AIDS-related illnesses, 380,000 of them children.
“The human toll of the epidemic is undeniable and increasing,” said Manoj Kurian of the World Council of Churches in a statement released by the Ecumenical Advocacy Alliance. “The statistics represent the lives of our families and friends, our faith communities and our religious leaders. We all must do more.”
Rick Warren, author of the mega-selling book, “The Purpose Driven Life” and pastor of the Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, Calif., is holding a national conference Nov. 29 to Dec. 1 to bring together local pastors and AIDS experts to fight the epidemic. It’s the second conference on the subject that he and his wife, Kay, have held. The event is expected to draw thousands of evangelicals.
“One of several revolutionary ideas we are bringing to the table is that lay people in local congregations worldwide can be trained to administer peer-to-peer treatment for HIV/AIDS, and … churches can actually do a better job long-term than either governments or NGOs,” the Warrens said in a statement.
The three-day conference features a multitude of religious and medical experts as well as special video presentations from philanthropists Bill and Melinda Gates, U2 frontman Bono and rising political star U.S. Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill.
As the new report was being released, U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan told his staff that “AIDS has drastically changed our world. AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria make up the deadliest triad the world has known.”
At the same time, the report _ prepared jointly by UNAIDS and the World Health Organization _ found some reason for optimism. It said access to HIV/AIDS treatment has increased; 1.65 million people now receiving anti-retro-viral treatment.
While the Geneva-based Ecumenical Advocacy Alliance called the increased access to treatment “good news,” it said in the same statement that “this is still far short of the global need.”
Religious leaders also stressed the need to make pediatric AIDS drugs available. “The pharmaceutical industry needs to make even greater efforts to make these drugs available in better formulations for use with children and to do so at affordable prices,” said the Rev. Bob Vitillo of the Roman Catholic aid group Caritas Internationalis.
Meanwhile, a high Vatican official said his office has prepared a study that runs nearly 200 pages on condom use in HIV prevention, according to Catholic News Service. Pope Benedict XVI requested the study. The church has long been involved in an argument over whether condoms _ usually condemned by the church as a forbidden means of artificial birth control _ can be used to prevent the transmission of HIV/AIDS.
Benedict recently called upon scientists and doctors to find cures for infectious diseases such as AIDS, but he did not specifically address the church’s stance on AIDS or the use of condoms to prevent the transmission of the virus. Some Catholic priests in Africa and Asia have been outspoken in their support of the use of condoms to prevent HIV/AIDS. Last June, news reports quoted Catholic bishops in Papua New Guinea as approving the use of condoms among married people to prevent the transmission of the disease.
According to the U.N. report, sub-Saharan Africa still bears the highest burden of AIDS infection, with 63 percent of the world’s infected people in that region. But it said the virus has spread fastest in Eastern Europe and Central Asia, with a nearly 70 percent increase in new infections.
In South and Southeast Asia, the number of new infections has grown by 12 percent since 2004, while it rose by 15 percent in North Africa and the Middle East. Latin America, the Caribbean and North America have remained roughly stable, the U.N. report said.
In the United States _ which reported figures only for 2005 _ there were 1.2 million people living with HIV _ ranking it among the top 10 countries in the number of infected people. The U.N. report said about 40,000 people are newly infected each year.
The report also said that there are 17.7 million women worldwide carrying the virus, an increase of more than 1 million over two years ago.
RR END ANDERSON
(David Anderson can be contacted at david.anderson(at)religionnews.com)
