Churches have been in the forefront of

Churches have been in the forefront of
care for people living with HIV. In many
countries, churches provide much of
the available health care and are
important collaborators when it comes
to ensuring that HIV prevention isintegrated into the health and care
services they provide.
As the international community focuses
on scaling up towards universal access
to HIV prevention, and AIDS treatment,
care and support, churches and their
health care institutions must be key
partners in the development and
achievement of country-level targets,
action plans and the roll out of
implementation activities. Furthermore,
as and when, new prevention
technologies such as microbicides and
vaccines become available, they will
need to play a major role in promoting
their acceptance. Many churches have
characteristically worked in relative
isolation, often in remote rural
communities. Today the international
community looks to work in collaboration
and partnership with communities of
faith and recognizes the importance of
their contribution.
As HIV is mainly a sexually transmitted
virus and as sexuality is a difficult topic
to discuss, UNAIDS is encouraged by
the innovative ways some churches
handle these issues. One church,
realizing that infidelity often was due to
sexual boredom in marriage, arranges
meetings in which married couples can
discuss this problem, and how to repair
and enhance sexual relations within the
married couple. Many Christian-based
organizations have made efforts to beinvolved in HIV prevention,
for example, World Relief,
which has produced very
comprehensive information
material on human sexuality2 .
HIV will change the world, and
we are already seeing this
happening in the hardest hit
countries. Many churches
have begun internal work on
transformation in order to be
able to respond to this
changed world. UNAIDS
welcomes this process of
reflection and transformation
among churches to be more
relevant to changing times.