By Sonia P. Omulepu

[Editor's Note): When reading this tragic account, remember that AIDS is one of a few entirely preventable diseases. Simple practice of biblical principles of living, i.e., total celibacy outside heterosexual marriage, would stop this plague in its tracks. Would that our church's leadership would assert this fact courageously and faithfully.]

It is estimated that during the year 2000,3.8 million people became infected with HIV in sub-Saharan Africa, bringing the total number of people living with HIV/AIDS in the region to 25.3 million, an increase of nearly a million from the figures of 1999. Concurrently, 2.4 million people died in Africa of AIDS in the year 2000, up from 2.2 million people last year. (UN Program on HIV/AIDS and World Health Organization December 2000).

According to Dr. Peter Piot, Executive Director of UNAIDS, "the AIDS situation in Africa is catastrophic - the region continues to lead the list as the world's most affected region. It faces a triple challenge providing care for the growing population of people infected with HIV, bringing down the infections through more effective prevention and coping with the impact of 17 million deaths on the continent."

These mind-numbing statistics demonstrate the level of suffering of the people in that region and support the opinion that a whole generation will be lost to this pandemic. The International Labor Organization estimates that by the year 2020 five countries including South Africa will lose up to a quarter of its work force. In Botswana 30 percent of the adult population is HIV-positive. In Zimbabwe, and Swaziland the infection rate is 25 percent. Lesotho is at 24 percent. In Namibia, South Africa and Zambia the figure is 20 percent.

Thirty to sixty percent of infants will be born with the virus, and their life expectancy is less than two years, estimates Lester Brown of Worldwatch Institute.

Women and children are the most vulnerable, thus causing the ultimate decline of the population in [the] region. He states: "the wholesale death of young adults in Africa is creating millions of orphans. By 2010, Africa is expected to have 40 million orphans."

The Botswana Christian Council has taken a bold step to educate its churches on the conditions of its AIDS orphans through their project Africa Praying. Supported by the World Council of Churches, Africa Praying has produced a video to sensitize and mobilize the churches on the pandemic. It is estimated that there are 65-85,000 orphans in Botswana. According to Evelyn Appiah, staff person of the WCC, this initiative, the brain child of Dr. Musa W. Dube Shomanah, "is an inspiring project" that could be used by other churches in responding to the HIV/ AIDS pandemic.

United Methodist Church's Global Ministries Board is also actively involved in helping to relieve the suffering AIDS orphans. The Uzumba Orphan Trust, is such a program in Zimbabwe. Through its fund, children whose parents have died of AIDS are able to remain in their homes where caregivers are assigned to attend to their needs.

Uganda has become a model for other countries, says Worldwatch, as the infected adult population has dropped from 14 percent in the early 1990s to eight percent in 2000. In Zambia the government has mobilized the health, education, agricultural, industrial sectors and church groups, in an effort to curb the spread ofthe virus; the infected share of young females in some cities has dropped by nearly half since 1993.

Dr. Peter Piot, believes a broad social mobilization is essential in the response of AIDS, he said, "This is not a question of government action in isolation, but a question of mass, sustained action. Every church, every village, every association needs to be involved in this pandemic because every church and every village has been touched by it."

On December 9, 2000 the new Ecumenical Advocacy Alliance pledged itself to tackle the issue of HIV/AIDS, and to develop an educational approach as well as a specific strategy. In a communique of its meeting, the Alliance referred to HIV/AIDS pandemic as one of the gravest challenges to health and "to prospects of social and economic development and global security." HIV/AIDS' impact is a symptom of "systematic economic problems such as under investment in health and unequal access to effective treatment." As an example, for every US dollar spent on health care in Zambia, four dollars are spent on reducing international debt. The Ecumenical Advocacy Alliance will bring specific ethical and theological perspectives to the international policy debate. "The churches must accept that the virus affects us as a community. We are not called to simply offer charity, but we are challenged to see that we all belong to the body of Christ. The suffering caused by HIV/AIDS affects all of us. We are reminded to recognize that the crisis of AIDS is our crisis."

*Sonia Omulepu is Special Projects Officer and administrator of the United States Office of the World Council of Churches in New York. Reprinted from ECUMENICAL COURIER, Dec 2000