(Vatican Radio) The United Nations, the Catholic Church and other faith based organisations have pledged to work more closely together to try and bring an end to the global AIDS epidemic. At an international conference here in Rome this past week, UNAIDS and other agencies leading the fight against the disease recognized that Churches provide up to 50% of all HIV-AIDS community care in some countries. Participants at the two day meeting also noted that faith based groups offer a unique combination of access to life saving drugs and care for the dignity of the individual, which other medical or scientific partners cannot provide.
Jointly organised by UNAIDS and the global Catholic aid and development confederation Caritas Internationalis, the conference focused on ways of expanding access to life saving treatment, which has also been proving effective in stopping the spread of the HIV virus.
Michael Roy is secretary general of Caritas Internationalis. He talked to Philippa Hitchen about the objectives of the meeting and the challenges facing all those striving to eliminate the once-fatal disease…..
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The real objective is to go beyond what we’ve been doing up to now as Church based organisations, beyond Caritas there are a number of other organisations which we help coordinate the response to HIV-AIDS…with UNAIDS, with whom we signed a memorandum of understanding, I think 7 years ago, a lot has been done…….
Vatican Radio
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