Catholic delegates say more money, less poverty needed to fight AIDS

Published: 2006-06-05

NEW YORK (CNS) -- A quarter-century after AIDS was first discovered, the international community still has to focus on poverty eradication, cultural barriers and funding for faith-based organizations to halt and reverse the AIDS pandemic, said Catholic delegates to a U.N. conference on AIDS. The high-level meeting, held at U.N. headquarters May 31-June 2, was a follow-up to a 2001 assembly that reached the first wide-ranging consensus on measures to curb the spread of AIDS and provide greater access to treatment. The nonbinding declaration issued at the end of this meeting serves as a blueprint, mainly reaffirming earlier pledges without any specifics as to national plans of action or financial commitment that would get countries on track to reach the 2010 target of universal access to AIDS prevention, treatment and care. However, the declaration did not address strongly enough the link between HIV/AIDS and poverty, said Chris Bain, director of the Catholic Agency for Overseas Development, an aid agency of the Catholic Bishops' Conference of England and Wales.

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