Lighting candles for the victims of HIV and AIDS on World AIDS day the 1st of December. Photo: Jakob Carlsen

Nobel laureate and former Archbishop of Cape Town, Desmond Tutu, says no-one anywhere in the world is immune from the issue of HIV. “You can no longer quarantine yourself and say you are able to remain safe when there is disease and poverty and instability ‘over there’. Instability in one part of the world almost always communicates itself as instability all over.” His words were echoed by delegates at a recent ACT Development HIV convention in Mozambique, attended by ACT International members working on HIV prevention projects.

HIV and AIDS emergencyAttendees said the pandemic needed greater urgency by humanitarian agencies the world over. They challenged the idea that the disease was not condemned as an international emergency, citing the example of Swaziland where the HIV prevalence rate is 26 percent. They said that if HIV was not deemed an emergency, the definition of emergency should be questioned. Desmond Tutu said he was sad for the fact that the world wasted so much time “fiddling whilst our room was burning”, arguing about what caused AIDS. Too many people ought not to have had died in the last three decades.

HIV and AIDS

Worldwide, the number of people living with HIV has risen from eight million in 1990 to 33 million today, and continues to grow, according to international AIDS charity Avert. The greatest concentration of people with HIV (67 per cent) is in sub-Saharan Africa. The World Health Organisation reports that global the epidemic is stabilising but at an unacceptable level. An estimated 33 million people lived with the disease in 2007, although the number of new infections fell from three million in 2001 to 2.7 million in 2007.

South Africa, where the archbishop lives, has one of the highest HIV-infected populations in the world. However, it was many years before the government accepted HIV as a problem.

Lights in the darkHowever, Desmond Tutu said that in the case of Africa, the world saw a great deal of the evil but forgot there was a great deal of good happening. “This devastating pandemic has also been a wonderful opportunity for people to demonstrate their humaneness, their ubuntu, their caring for one another. “I hope we can accept a wonderful truth. We are family. If we could get to believe this we would realise that to care about the other is not being altruistic, it is the best form of self-interest. That is the dream that I hope one day we can realise. “ World AIDS Day comes a fortnight ahead of major climate change talks in Copenhagen at which world leaders will debate whether to make striking cuts to carbon emissions. ACT International believes climate change adds to the impact of people already vulnerable and weakened by HIV. ACT is calling for universal access to essential health care, medical staff to have the capacity to implement health care, and that greater efforts are made to reduce the devastating stigma and discrimination the disease creates. ACT International is in the process of creating a policy group on psychosocial issues, highlighting the need to look more closely at mental health including that of people living with HIV. See the full Desmond Tutu interview here Story by ACT - Action by Churches Together. DanChurchAis is a member of ACT.