PROMOTING UNIVERSAL ACCESS TO HIV/AIDS THERAPIES
VATICAN CITY, 1 DEC 2011 (VIS) - Made public today was an
English-language statement from the Pontifical Council for Health Care Workers
for World AIDS Day 2011.
The text, signed by
Archbishop Zygmunt Zimowski, president of the pontifical council, says that the
Day "must constitute a new opportunity to promote universal access to
therapies for those who are infected, the prevention of transmission from
mother to child, and education in lifestyles that involve, as well, an approach
that is truly correct and responsible as regards sexuality. In addition, this
is a privileged moment to relaunch the fight against social prejudice".
An estimated
1,800,000 people still die every year because of HIV/AIDS, mostly in
sub-Saharan Africa. "These are people who could lead normal lives if they
only had access to suitable pharmacological therapies, those known as
antiretroviral therapies.
"Deaths are
thus witnessed that are no longer justifiable, just as the pain of the
relatives of the people involved. ... By now the transmission of the infection
from mothers to their children, who often become victims even before they begin
to see the outlines of the world that surrounds them, equally, cannot be
justified.
"Although the
extension of these therapies to all peoples and to all the parts of a
population is something that cannot but be engaged in, of fundamental
importance, on the other hand, remains the formation, the education, of
everyone, and in particular the new generations, in a sexuality based upon 'an
anthropology anchored in natural law and illuminated by the Word of God'. The
Church and her Magisterium ask for a lifestyle that privileges abstinence,
conjugal faithfulness and the rejection of sexual promiscuity, because, as the
Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation 'Africae munus' emphasised, all of this
forms a part of the question of the 'integral development' to which people and
communities have a right.
"In launching
this new appeal for commitment and solidarity in favour of all the (both direct
and indirect) victims of HIV/AIDS, we would like to thank, in union of spirit
with the Holy Father, all those who have striven, often for very many years, to
help them. We are referring here to institutions, agencies and volunteers who
'work in the sector of health care and especially of AIDS'. ... who, without
doubt, deserve the operational support, and support without ideological ties,
of international organisations and benefactors.
"Lastly, we
wish to express our proximity to people afflicted by HIV/AIDS, to those who are
near to them, and to all those healthcare workers who, being exposed to the
risk of infection as well, provide all possible care to them, respecting their
personalities and their dignity".
CON-AVA/
VIS 20111201 (450)
***************************************************************
Mr. Michel Roy, Secretary General to the 163 National member
organizations of Caritas
Internationalis, with regard to the Update for the Caritas
HAART for
Children Campaign.
As many of you already are aware, the Caritas Confederation
has taken a
lead role, since 1987, in responding to the needs of people
living with or
affected by the pandemic of HIV/AIDS and in advocating for
governmental and
civil society action in response to this pandemic based on
the values of
justice and charity. During the past years, much progress
has been made.
Even though a cure for AIDS is yet to be discovered, we can
be thankful
that increased accessibility of HAART (“Highly Active
Anti-Retroviral
Treatment”, the combination of medicines used to treat HIV),
has turned
what once was an automatic “death sentence” into a chronic
disease.
As we observe World AIDS Day (01 December), Caritas can be
grateful that
our organizations are directly sponsoring or supporting HIV
programmes in
116 countries and on every continent of the world. There
still are many
challenges ahead of us, however. The Joint United Nations
Programme on AIDS
informs us that, at the end of 2010, some 34 million people
were living
with AIDS and that 2.7 million of these became newly
infected during this
same year. More than 50% of these persons are women, and
they face the
double burden of living with the disease themselves and of
possibly
transmitting the infection their babies (during pregnancy,
childbirth, or
breastfeeding). Treatment is accessible only to some 50% of
the
HIV-positive persons who need it and, despite the best
efforts of Caritas
and other Catholic Church-inspired organizations, many
people are not
motivated to change the behaviors that put them at risk of
contracting HIV
infection.
One particular group has been especially deprived of
opportunities to gain
access to treatment and prevention of HIV – that is, *babies
and young
children living with the virus*. Without anti-retroviral
treatment, 50% of
children living with HIV will die before their second
birthday. For this
reason, Caritas launched its “HAART for Children” Campaign
in March 2009 in
order to invite Caritas and other faith-based organizations
to advocate
more assertively for early diagnosis and treatment of
children living with
HIV or HIV/TB co-infection and to facilitate better access
for
HIV-positive, pregnant women to gain access to the medicines
that could
prevention HIV transmission to their children and to keep
themselves alive
and healthy.
Since that time, thousands of Caritas workers and volunteers
have appealed
to governments, research institutes, and international
institutions to
develop and make available “child friendly” formulations and
dosages of
“HAART” medicines and to adapt them for use in low-income
countries where
it is difficult to maintain liquid formulations because of
lack of
refrigeration. We also have been advocating for development
and access to
low-cost/ low-technology testing equipment so that mothers
and children
could be diagnosed earlier and thus so that appropriate
treatment could be
initiated.
With this letter, I am pleased to share with you our
“Caritas Campaign
Update: HAART for Children”. This report provides updated
information about
the plight of children living with HIV or HIV/TB
Co-infection. The report also includes detailed recommendations on how Caritas and
other organizations could engage in the Campaign. Please follow this link to
find
this report on the Caritas Internationalis website
On this occasion of World AIDS Day 2011, let us ask God to
grant comfort
and healing for all persons living with or affected by HIV
and to eliminate
all stigma and discrimination toward them. Let us engage
with greater
energy in advocacy for Universal Access to HIV treatment,
care and support,
most especially for children living with this infection.
Finally let us
recall the words of our Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI, in
the recently
released Apostolic Exhortation, *Africae Munus*:
*In the name of life – which it is the Church’s duty to
defend and protect
– and in union with the Synod Fathers, I offer an expression
of renewed
encouragement and support to all the Church’s institutions
and movements
that are working in the field of healthcare, especially with
regard to
AIDS. You are doing wonderful and important work. I ask
international
agencies to acknowledge you and to offer you assistance,
respecting your
specific character and acting in a spirit of collaboration.*
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