"AIDS is out of control and threatening to wipe out 25 years of progress in some of the poorest nations," Patrick Dixon, founder of the international AIDS charity ACET (AIDS Care Education & Training) has said this week.

|PIC1|As World AIDS Day approaches on 1 December, the ACET founder has come out to say: "AIDS is destroying a generation of young people on which the future of these countries depend. In worst-hit towns and cities a family or office worker can expect to attend an AIDS funeral at least once a month.

"Every few seconds another young person becomes infected with HIV without realising it. Tens of millions of children face an uncertain future because their parents have died. Yet AIDS is 100 per cent preventable and it costs very little to save a life."

Dixon added, "We have seen in Uganda that AIDS can be beaten - with dramatic falls in infection rates from 22 per cent to 7 per cent over the last decade. But even Uganda is now seeing another rise - as a new generation of young people start taking risks. Meanwhile we are seeing rapid spread of HIV in India, Russia, Ukraine and China. We need a global response to AIDS on a scale never seen before."

Patrick Dixon is calling on the UK church to support the work of AIDS prevention before it is too late.

"In many of the poorest nations churches are leading the fight against AIDS, with tens of thousands of volunteers from their congregations, but they urgently need our support. It is easy to be complacent in the UK where only 65,000 have been infected so far with HIV, and those that carry the virus have access to antiviral treatment.

"After 20 years of losing ground to the epidemic, many of the largest international development agencies are now making AIDS a top priority, in partnership with governments, activist groups and faith-based organisations - who are now being recognised for the central role they play in mobilising whole communities in life-saving prevention, care and orphan support."

ACET was founded by Patrick Dixon in 1988, and has HIV prevention programmes in 20 countries including Uganda, South Africa, India, Russia and Ukraine.