Vatican: H.I.V./AIDS Treatment for All

In a statement released for World AIDS Day on Dec. 1, Archbishop Zygmunt Zimowski, president of the Pontifical Council for Health Care Workers, said that annual day of reflection and action on H.I.V./AIDS offers “a new opportunity to promote universal access to therapies for those who are infected, the prevention of transmission from mother to child and education in lifestyles that involve, as well, an approach that is truly correct and responsible as regards sexuality.” He called it also “a privileged moment to relaunch the fight against social prejudice.” An estimated 1.8 million people still die every year because of H.I.V./AIDS, mostly in sub-Saharan Africa. “These are people who could lead normal lives if they only had access to suitable pharmacological therapies, those known as antiretroviral therapies,” Archbishop Zimowski said.