Partnership needed to fight AIDS, U.S. official tells Rome meeting

Published: 2004-07-28

ROME (CNS) -- Governments and faith-based organizations must enter into a new partnership not only to prevent the spread of HIV, but to treat people living with AIDS, said the U.S. government's point man for the global battle against the disease. "It is churches, Buddhist temples, mosques and synagogues who have gone out and helped people" suffering from the disease in the world's poorest countries, said Randall L. Tobias, the Bush administration's global AIDS coordinator. During a July 27 video conference linking Washington and Rome, Tobias spoke with Vatican officials and representatives of Caritas Internationalis, the U.S. bishops' Catholic Relief Services and the Community of Sant'Egidio, a Rome-based lay group which has been offering free antiretroviral treatment to people with AIDS in Mozambique. Jim Nicholson, the U.S. ambassador to the Holy See, said he organized the conference to promote greater cooperation between the government and faith-based organizations and to allow representatives "to get acquainted, even if by television."

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