Oxfam America Blog

When I first read Pope Benedict XVI’s recent comments about AIDS and condoms – “You can’t resolve it with the distribution of condoms,” he told reporters aboard a plane heading to Cameroon. “On the contrary, it increases the problem” – I flipped out.

I remember muttering to my husband on the train ride into work that it’s one thing for the pope to believe that sort of thing because of his religious beliefs; it’s another for him to actually undermine the work of NGOs like Oxfam around the world, which are encouraging prevention efforts.

Itumeleng Modimola is a caregiver, community worker, HIV/AIDS counselor, fund raiser, and mentor for families affected by HIV/AIDS in South Africa. Photo by: Brett Eloff / Oxfam America.

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Children get lunch after school in Soweto, South Africa. Programs like this serving orphans and vulnerable children are essential, but must be matched with efforts to create laws and policies that will help reduce the spread of HIV and AIDS. Photo by Brett Eloff/Oxfam America.

World AIDS Day is today, and the usual analysis of how the world is coping with reducing the global epidemic of HIV and AIDS is enhanced by a story by Celia Dugger in the New York Times last week:  A report by Harvard University estimates that 330,000 lives were lost in South Africa between 2000 and 2005 by the country’s failure to implement a timely distribution of anti-retroviral medication. The study, “Estimating the Lost Benefits of AntiretroviralDrug Use in South Africa,” also says 30,000 babies were born with HIV due to lack of access to proper medication for pregnant women. “there is no evidence yet of major changes in HIV-related behaviour.” Disturbing trends continue: Women are still disproportionately affected, legal reforms that would help protect the rights of women are slow in coming, and the ambitious National Strategic AIDS Plan finished in 2007 is sluggish in producing meaningful results.

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