News and events

ANGLICAN CHURCH MAKES IMPASSIONED PLEA FOR HOLISTIC STRATEGY AGAINST
HIV AND AIDS

22 SEPTEMBER 2006

Anglican Liaison Bishop for HIV and AIDS, David Beetge, has made an impassioned plea, on behalf of the Anglican Church in Southern Africa. He has urged that all concerned with the HIV and AIDS seek a new multi-sector partnership that will address the disease.

This on the eve of planned march to Parliament by the TAC on Tuesday September 19 to protest (among other things) poor political leadership and poorly implemented care and treatment programmes. It also comes in the wake of recently reported efforts by the presidency to mend relations with the TAC.

Bishop Beetge, who recently attended the International AIDS Conference in Toronto on behalf of the Anglican Church, says that the figures presented to the Conference and the figures available in Southern Africa show that the AIDS pandemic here has reached alarming proportions.

“No-one can tackle this one single-handedly. We need a sustained and united effort to work towards a generation without AIDS,” says the Bishop. “I am calling on all levels of Government, National, Provincial and Local, to commit themselves to working with Faith Based Organisations and NGOs in a creative partnership that will pool the capacity each one has, together with the resources available in this country and through the international community, in order to address this pandemic in the most holistic way.”

“I am urging the Government and NGOs, including the Treatment Action Campaign, for the sake of those who are suffering and for the sake of those whom we want to protect from this virus, to put behind them the conflict and differences between them and to seek a new multi-sector partnership that will address this pandemic urgently” says Bishop Beetge.

“I am convinced that the only way forward is by Government (at all levels), Academics, the Medical Profession, Pharmaceutical Industry, NGOs, Faith Based Organisations and others coming together to address this pandemic. I further call for a national consultation, which will include alI sectors, to address it. I also call on SANAC to include all sectors and to meet on a regular basis so that this pandemic can be addressed by a united response within the country.