This World AIDS Day on 1 December, Caritas is urging governments and pharmaceutical companies to invest more in HIV prevention and care for children and reducing mother-to-child transmission. “We need to give children with HIV the chance to live,” said Cardinal Oscar Rodríguez Maradiaga, President of Caritas Internationalis. “Caritas asks governments and drug companies to ...
Msgr. Robert J. Vitillo, the Special Advisor on HIV/AIDS for Caritas Internationalis, spoke about the recent challenges in combating HIV and AIDS, on the occasion of the upcoming World AIDS Conference in Vienna (18-23 July 2010). Is the world facing up to the challenge of responding to HIV AIDS? I fear that the world is ...
The 18th international Aids conference in Vienna ended Friday with one strong message: Despite the financial crisis the fight against HIV/AIDS must not decrease. “We are just at the end of the beginning,” said former US President Bill Clinton in his speech. At least 25,000 people from all over the world took part in this ...
Caritas works on behalf of those at risk fromdevastating pandemics such as HIV and AIDS, tuberculosis (TB) and malaria. In the developing world, poverty itself is both a cause and an effect of pandemics that devastate the physical, social and economic health of entire regions. Caritas raises awareness about AIDS issues around the world through ...
Papua New Guinea (PNG) has the highest HIV infection rate in the Pacific region. The true figure of people living with the disease in 2008 was estimated by the United Nations organisation UNAIDS at around 54,000 (out of a population of six million) although only half that figure was officially reported. Caritas supports an extensive ...
When seven-year-old Mosipho was brought to the Thabang Society in Parys, South Africa, she was close to death. She had been diagnosed with HIV in January and was seriously ill. “She was suffering from pneumonia and had a swollen abdomen and swollen legs. She wasn’t far from death,” said paediatrician Dr Almud Pollmeier. Mosipho, who ...
Children were at the heart of the Caritas response to AIDS during 2009. Every day, 800 children die from AIDS-related diseases. The Caritas ‘HAART for Children’ campaign urged governments and pharmaceutical firms to develop and provide ‘child-friendly’HIV and TB medicines as well as low-cost/low-technology testing methods to diagnose these infections. HAART stands for “Highly Active ...
By Edwyn Shiell, Act for Peace – Campaigns & Communication Coordinator “It’s difficult to talk about HIV and AIDS in Darfur. You can’t really talk about it openly in the camps”, says Gloria Gwoka Nakoboji, the HIV/AIDS Project Officer for the Sudan Council of Churches – SCC (A Caritas partner) in Nyala, Darfur. Estimates of ...
Securing Better Access to Early Testing and Treatment for Children Living with HIV or HIV/TB Co-Infection and to Prevention of Mother-to-Child Transmission of HIV. 14 – 16 October 2009 | Programme (English) » | Programme (Italiano) » | Invitation » In poor countries, some children with HIV and TB don’t stand a chance at life. Children may die because they ...