AFRICA/DEMOCRATIC CONGO - Young people teach young people how to avoid HIV/AIDS which continues to take millions of lives every year

Tuesday, 22 November 2005

Kinshasa (Fides Service)- Prevention is the best way to stop the spread of the HIV virus which causes AIDS and the best people to teach young people how to keep clear of it are young people themselves. This is the conviction of EVIS Espoir, Vie et Solidarité a local NGO in Democratic Congo which has launched an anti AIDS programme in schools.
According to the local Catholic news agency DIA, the initiative was launched in 2000 in Kinshasa and has since been extended to various other parts of Congo. At the end of October EVIS held a meeting in the capital to take stock of progress made. The philosophy of EVIS is to teach young people to teach other young people to react with responsibility to the threat of AIDS. They do this in homes, at school, at work, among friends, in city districts. Education consists in making the young person realise that sexuality is a gift of love rather than a tool of pleasure.
It is not easy to pass on the message, the project organisers say, because adults are indifferent to the threat of HIV/AIDS and poverty and illiteracy lead most people to behave irrationally and irresponsibly.
However this type of initiative is necessary to stop the pandemic which takes millions of lives every year.
According to the United Nations latest report on HIV/AIDS in 2005 the number of HIV+ people in the world has reached a peak of 40.3 million, double the number 1995 (19.9 million). This year 2005, AIDS has killed 3.1 million including 57000 children.
Sub-Saharan Africa is still the area most affected by this terrible virus for which there is no vaccine: 25.8 million HIV+, 3.2 million more infected persons in 2005 (64% of the total) and 2.4 million dead.
Since the virus was identified in 1981, it has killed over 25 million people in the world. A figure which makes AIDS one of the most devastating epidemics of all times. (L.M.) (Agenzia Fides 22/11/2005 righe 34 parole 411)


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