Church of Scotland sees real progress in battle against HIV

The Church of Scotland's HIV/AIDS Project will tell the General Assembly that collaborative efforts to contain the spread of HIV is at last showing some positive results on the world stage.

A huge amount must still be achieved, the project will say, particularly in the economically developing world where healthcare difficulties are compounded by issues of debt, poverty and limited access to education.

Recently, with greater availability of expensive "combination therapies", deaths and illnesses have dramatically decreased in the West, although they are by no means being eradicated altogether.

Despite undertakings from the world's most powerful governments to have these antiretroviral medications made more readily available across the globe, the challenge remains to see combination therapies offered in a way that could viably extend life expectancy rates in richer and poorer countries alike.

The group praises positive developments, and notes that the number of new infections and HIV related-deaths have been reduced worldwide, thanks in part to collaborative working, in some cases through partnerships involving direct funding from the Church of Scotland's HIV/AIDS Project. Of special note has been the success of local peer education programmes in some of the world's poorest countries, bringing information and support where they are badly needed.

Meanwhile, the group acknowledges that in HIV's brief history it has been accompanied worldwide by high levels of misunderstanding and fear. With stigma still attached to HIV/AIDS, many people infected and affected by the virus find it hard to receive necessary support, the group says. This requires continued action to help those living with the virus to be accepted by neighbours who continue to misunderstand the nature of the threat posed by HIV.

The group has set an objective for the Church of Scotland to reach out with collaborative assistance programmes, so that progress might be built upon in time to come.

"[We] urge congregations to seek practical ways to engage with issues of HIV through their local and overseas church partnerships," Deliverance section 4 states.

"It is one of the real successes that the Church of Scotland works with partner agencies to be of relevance not only to the individual in the pew, but to aching hearts wherever they are."