Maryknoll's commitment to combatting HIV/AIDS (includes glossary of terms and resources) (PDF file)
HIV/AIDS
“We are all members of one body” Ephesians 4:25
Ruth was found along a dirt road in Mbuya, Uganda, together with her ill and malnourished baby and her 4-year-old daughter. Sent away from her village by her family, she had come to Kampala to seek treatment for HIV/AIDS, but after a short hospital stay, she was discharged. She had not eaten for days, had no home, and she could not tolerate the medicines she’d been given. Ruth wanted to die … and she wanted her baby to die.
A community worker from the Reach Out program, herself living with HIV/AIDS, took the little family into her home. She helped Ruth receive treatment for tuberculosis and other infections, and after a few weeks, both Ruth and her baby were started on antiretroviral therapy for AIDS. When Ruth grew stronger, Reach Out rented a small room for her close to the community worker, who stayed by her side during the first difficult months.
Six months after her first visit to Reach Out and following the support she received, Ruth is proudly showing off her baby to other clients at Reach Out and people in the community, especially other struggling women. She attends adult literacy classes and soon will be able to run a small business and care for herself and her children.
An estimated 33 million people still live with HIV/AIDS, 25 million have died and more than 15 million children worldwide have been orphaned. In many places where Maryknoll missioners work with communities devastated by AIDS, as in the U.S., stigma is still a major obstacle to overcoming this disease, and prevention efforts have not caught up with the high rate of transmission. More than six million people, many of them children, die each year of TB, malaria and HIV/AIDS for lack of medicines. Overwhelming debt payments and unjust trade policies impede governments’ adequate response to the pandemic.
At their recent summit, the leaders of the G8 wealthier countries promised an increase in investment in programs to respond to AIDS, TB and malaria. However the $60 billion they committed is only one-third of what the UN estimates is needed in the next five years. The President’s Emergency Program for AIDS Response (PEPFAR) made a good beginning, but recent funding is far less than the amounts needed, and restrictions on access to more affordable generic drugs have created insurmountable obstacles for HIV-positive poor people. Less than 30 percent of those in the global South who need them receive antiretroviral drugs.
Important policy goals are suggested by our Catholic social tradition that holds as sacred the right to life and the dignity of every person, especially the most vulnerable:
• Allocate $50 billion (which constitutes the U.S. fair share of supporting treatment for at least 33 percent of those in clinical need, and continues existing bilateral programs) over the next five years in response to AIDS, TB and malaria worldwide. Increase U.S. donations to the Global Fund, which finances HIV/AIDS programs beyond what the U.S. can cover bilaterally.
• Respect the World Trade Organization’s rules to make generic medications available worldwide.
• Approve use of U.S. funds to purchase generic medication.
• Cancel unjust and overwhelming debt without conditions that restrict government spending on health care.
• Invest in the training, retention and support of health workers in poor countries.
• Include nutrition and health care education with programs responding to HIV/AIDS.
Questions for candidates:
1. How would you address the racial disparity in HIV/AIDS prevention and services here in the U.S.?
2. Would you support a greater U.S. contribution to the Global Fund? Why or why not?
3. How would you ensure that the United States and other G8 nations keep their promise to increase investments in programs to fund AIDS, TB and malaria for the rest of the world?
4. Should the United States require that funds designated to purchase HIV/AIDS medicines for people in other countries be limited to medicines produced by U.S. pharmaceuticals?
5. What can our government do to ensure the lowest possible prices for essential medicines?
Links for more information
The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria
RESULTS, a nonprofit grassroots advocacy organization