AIDS2016 pushes faith communities to respond to epidemic’s new challenges
A popular march through the streets of Durban, South Africa, demanding better funding for HIV and AIDS treatment during the 2016 International AIDS Conference.
25 July 2016
The 21st International AIDS Conference, which concluded July 22, had its normal dose of science speak, with seminars and workshops ranging from new vaccine trials to the testing of a vaginal ring that appears to dramatically lower the risk of HIV infection in women.
A biennial event, the 2016 Conference drew thousands of scientists, public-policy professionals, persons living with HIV and activists to Durban, South Africa, for the five-day gathering under the theme “Access Equity Rights Now.”
Yet from the very first day, it was clear that science is only part of the solution, because AIDS is more than a simple virus.
In the opening plenary, South African actress Charlize Theron declared, “AIDS does not discriminate on its own. It has no biological preference for black bodies, for women’s bodies, for gay bodies, for youth or for the poor. It doesn’t single out the vulnerable, the oppressed, or the abused. We single out the vulnerable, the oppressed, and the abused. We ignore them. We let them suffer. And then, we leave them to die.”
The role of faith communities
As faith leaders from around the world met before and during the conference to reflect on their own role in fighting the epidemic, they were repeatedly praised for the work they’ve done and then challenged to do more.
In an interfaith gathering on the eve of the conference organized by the World Council of Churches’ Ecumenical Advocacy Alliance (WCC-EAA), a top United Nations official warned the religious community that despite fewer people dying every year from AIDS, the wily virus refuses to go away.
“At the same time we are saving more lives than ever, the AIDS epidemic is coming back, it is rebounding and reemerging everywhere. The difference now to what we saw in the past is that the epidemic is much more selective, it’s affecting the ones you faith leaders care most about, the ones left behind, the last and the least in your societies. This is the modern shape of the AIDS epidemic,” said Luiz Loures, the deputy executive director of the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) and assistant secretary-general of the United Nations.
Loures said the medical and scientific communities need to go beyond traditional approaches as they respond to the new challenges, and faith communities must play a central role.
“It’s not just medicines and what happens in clinical wards and health centers that will solve this crisis. At the end it’s about how we approach people, about ethics, about what brings us together to work for better societies, societies that our children will be proud to live in,” he said.
