Agenzia Fides

Vatican City (Agenzia Fides) - Next December 1 marks World AIDS Day, a disease that continues to cause millions of deaths especially in the poorest regions of the world and also the Holy Father spoke at the end of the general audience on Wednesday, November 28. The Church has always showed great commitment in this area: more than 25% of the structures in the world that assist AIDS patients are Catholics. Among the most salient initiatives for this celebration are, the meeting in the Vatican between the leaders of the Catholic Medical Mission Board (CMMB), U.S. charitable organization with mission objectives in the health sector, which celebrates this year one hundred years, and the Foundation "the Good Samaritan ", created by the Pontifical Council for Health Care Workers.
The CMMB was founded in 1912 in New York, and includes, among its activities, sending volunteer medical personnel and equipment as well as the collection of drugs, received as a gift, then distributed to needy people. Its collaboration with the Foundation "The Good Samaritan" began in 2010 and has already helped to get to destination, thanks to the involvement of Nunciatures and Bishops, many containers full of essential medicines, such as antibiotics. All this is destined to the health centers of the Catholic Church operating in poor and inaccessible areas of ten African countries: Angola, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Congo Brazzaville, Congo Kinshasa, Niger, Sierra Leone, Somalia, South Sudan and Zimbabwe. (AP) (Agenzia Fides 29/11/2012)