AIDS across the world: a Christian response

If we look back over the 20th century, the sudden and disastrous onslaught of AIDS ranks as one of its great calamities. It is one of the greatest challenges for the 21st century.

How has the Christian church worldwide risen to that challenge?

In this article, Steven Fouch illustrates how some Christians have sought to tackle the HIV epidemic in their own nations.

One would be forgiven for thinking that the AIDS epidemic had disappeared in the last few years. There have been no major government campaigns, no big name celebrities have died, red ribbons are no longer seen fashionably at public events, and AIDS barely appears in the headlines any more. AIDS is no longer a hip cause or in the news, so it must have gone away. Right?

It would be nice to think so, but the figures speak alarmingly for themselves. Around 50,000 people in England and Wales have been diagnosed as HIV positive since records began. More people in Britain now live with HIV and AIDS than ever before, and more people are being diagnosed each year than at any time in the last two decades. Although new drugs treatments have been helping, they are not solving the problem. Not everyone responds to treatment, and even those that do may only have three or four years before treatments fail. There still is no cure or vaccine.

But the situation in Britain is still mild by comparison to Africa and Asia, where the situation is very different.

Africa

The heartland of the HIV/AIDS epidemic today is Africa south of the Sahara. Statistics are hard to take in, but behind each one lie countless human tragedies that break God's heart.

* In 2001 nearly two and half million people died in the continent as a result of AIDS - that's equivalent to the population of Wales being wiped out in one year!

* 70% of all people living with HIV and AIDS and 60% of all new infections worldwide are in Africa.

* Almost eight million children have been orphaned. In some African villages only children and old people are left.

* In Botswana, as many as 30ù40% of the adult population are HIV positive.

Uganda is one of the countries worst hit. In some urban areas a staggering one in three people are HIV-positive. The poor status of women, polygamy, wife inheritance and ritual circumcision with shared knives accelerate the transmission of the virus. Millions of children have lost parents to the virus. Whole villages have died.

Nevertheless, Uganda is one of the success stories in the fight against AIDS - and Christians have been at the forefront. Thanks to a highly successful national education campaign, run with churches and Christian organisations, there has been a fall in the number of new HIV cases for two years in succession.

This programme focused on promoting marital fidelity, celibacy outside of marriage, and only secondarily on condom use (which has been the focus of most secular campaigns). Using TV, radio, posters, drama and music, this explicit message about the risks of sexual behaviours outside of committed, faithful marriage has had a dramatic impact on behaviour and has shown a reduction in the rate of new infection overall, and in some areas, even a decrease in new infections - one of the few countries in the world where this has happened.

The Christian charity ACET Uganda (AIDS Care Education and Training) has been one of the leading agencies over the last decade, providing AIDS education for over 20,000 students and training over 1,000 community AIDS workers in one year alone. But according to David Kabiswa, Director of ACET Uganda, the efforts of the various charities involved would not alone have been sufficient to achieve what has been accomplished. The attitude and approach of the Ugandan government has proved crucial. 'The President himself declared open policy on HIV and AIDS' says David. 'An AIDS Commission was set up in the President's Office, and there is an AIDS Officer in every Government ministry.'

Asia

While Africa has borne the brunt for the last ten years, attention is increasingly shifting towards Asia. China and India, in particular, each have populations exceeding that of the whole of Africa (around a billion people), and both are in the early stages of an AIDS epidemic, which threatens to be every bit as severe as Africa's. The prospects are bleak. By mid-1996 UNAIDS estimated that between two-and-a-half and five million people were already HIV-positive in India. China has only recently revealed that HIV is becoming a growing problem, especially through the use of unsterilised medical instruments.

Currently, India has a similar number of people living with HIV to South Africa - but with a far larger population this is still a small percentage. If the proportion of HIV positive people in India or China reaches the same levels as in Southern Africa (20ù40%), within a decade there will not just be millions, but hundreds of millions of people worldwide facing an early death as a result of AIDS.

The only effective treatments for AIDS are prohibitively expensive for the developing world. With no signs of an effective vaccine, changing people's behaviour remains the only hope for halting the epidemic. But there is no sign as yet of the kind of government intervention in Asia which proved so crucial in Uganda.

However, the Christian response in India has been highly significant. The Bible provides a basis for a lifestyle that almost eliminates the risks of HIV transmission, and it is this that is the greatest strength in Christian responses to HIV prevention. ACET Uganda, for example, has taken its expertise in the African context and linked in with other Indian Christian organisations with strong local health networks, such as the Emmanuel Hospital Association, to form a co-ordinated network of Christian AIDS/HIV initiatives across the country. The resulting network, CANA (Christian AIDS National Alliance in India), is now acting as an umbrella for a growing range of prevention and care services. A similar network of Christian agencies is growing up in Africa and now in the UK. It is early years, but worldwide Christians are already making an impact in fighting AIDS and HIV.

Prejudice

AIDS cannot be divorced from the prejudice that surrounds those living with the illness. It is associated for many with sexual immorality and drug taking. Many see it as God's judgement.

Sadly, among churches in the West, these attitudes have hindered a Christian response. Yet unconditional love and care is as appropriate towards those with HIV as towards any other medical condition. Whatever someone has done that has led to their being infected, we should emulate Jesus in how we respond to them. Lepers, treated as sinners whom God had judged, were outcast from Jewish society, and no godly Jew would even go near, let alone touch one. Jesus cut right through that, not only healing lepers, but also physically touching those who were thought untouchable. Christians in Uganda and India have already shown the way - we in the West have quite a bit of catching up to do!

The key is for Christians to work together to tackle this deadly epidemic. The church is a global body, and through it those with skills and expertise in different parts of the world are ensuring that the experience gleaned in the first decade of the AIDS epidemic can be put to good use in areas such as Asia and Eastern Europe where it is still early enough to make a difference.

Steve Fouch is Director of MMA HealthServe, a resource centre and network for Christian healthcare in the developing world. He was formerly the team leader of ACET UK's London Home Care Service.

In 2003 MMA HealthServe celebrates its 125th anniversary as a support to Christians engaged in mission and healthcare in the developing world. If you would like to know more about its work, or any of the organisations or work mentioned in this article, please contact MMA HealthServe on 020 7790 1336 or email info@healthserve.org