India Church Leaders to Raise HIV/AIDS Awareness

World Vision recently held an HIV/AIDS conference for church leaders in northeast India. With more than 4.5 million people infected with HIV/AIDS, India is second only to South Africa in terms of the overall number of people living with the disease.

Conference attendees showed great concern for affected people, World Vision reported, particularly the thousands of church members who are fighting each day to live with the virus. During the conference, participants drafted a letter that will be sent to numerous churches in northeast India. Dr. Jayakumar Christian, World Vision's national director in India, said, "The message is clear. It calls for the church to act urgently and courageously."

According to World Vision, Northeast India has a particularly high prevalence rate due to the region's proximity to the Golden Trianglean epicenter of illegal trafficking of drugs, contraband, and women and a mobile population of truckers and defense personnel. Transmission of HIV within and from these groups drives the epidemic, but the infection is spreading to the general community — with about 25 percent of all new HIV infections occurring in women.

World Vision's projects in this region include a job training center for widows living with the virus as well as programs dedicated to working with drug addicts and commercial sex workers.

At the end of the conference, participants agreed to raise awareness of the disease among church and community members, and also to raise funds to help people living with HIV/AIDS.