Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Kep City (Fides Service) - In 2003 in Cambodia 20 new cases of HIV-AIDS were registered every day. In 2005 in nine months 10,000 new cases of HIV and 19,811 cases of AIDS were registered, according to the Department of Skin and Sexually Transmitted Diseases of the National HIV/AIDS Centre.
With the help of the Fathers of the Paris Foreign Missions Society, the local Church has now opened a home where HIV/AIDS patients receive care and treatment. The home iscalled John Paul II Pro-Life Centre after the late Pope who said “human life is precious and must be treated with respect”.
The Centre has ten 3 by 5 metre buildings, with walls of cement and roofs are covered with straw. It is situated in Kep City a former Khmer Rouge stronghold 170 km south west of Phnom Penh. The centre was inaugurated on 26 February by the papal nuncio to Cambodia Archbishop Salvatore Pennacchio and Bishop Emile Destombes Apostolic Vicar of Phnom Penh MEP.
When in 2003 Fr Olivier Schmitthaeusler MEP first went to Phnom Voah, a former area of conflict between Red Khmer and the army, he found 70 people suffering from HIV/AIDS being treated by a local Khmer doctor only with natural herb medicines. In 2004 three HIV+ families were turned out of their homes and the priest decided to send them to a hospital in Takeo, 70 km south of Phnom Penh. In 2005 when a storm destroyed the poor homes of a number of local families with AIDS Fr Olivier decided it was time to build new, more resistant homes with cement walls and straw roofs. This was the start of the John Paul II Pro-life Centre where at present there are 18 adults and 21 children. The local Catholic community supplies each family every week with 40 kg of rice and 40.000 Riel (10 US dollars). (AP) (21/3/2006 Agenzia Fides; Righe:29; Parole:361)
