VIRTUAL AIDS CONFERENCE

Church of Scotland representatives attended a virtual meeting of the 23rd International AIDS conference in San Francisco in the USA.

The Rev Richard Baxter, minister of Fort William: Duncansburgh MacIntosh, and Carol Finlay of the Faith Impact Forum, took part in online events to ensure the Church is up to date with the latest developments in the global fight against AIDS and HIV.

The conference, which had the theme Resilience, heard that 1.7 million people were newly infected with HIV in 2019. Mr Baxter and Ms Finlay said in a statement after the conference: “HIV continues to be the biggest epidemic since the 1918 Spanish flu.

“Numbers in sub-Saharan Africa are reducing, but the battle is not yet won and COVID-19 is threatening to overshadow HIV in terms of resources. This could see the rates of mother to child transmission in this area returning to what they were 10 years ago.

“It is in Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Latin America where the percentage of new infections are rising the most. Places where key populations are treated inequitably, where criminal law prevents parts of the community accessing adequate treatment safely. Where some groups, particularly Black and Latino youth, gay men and transgender women are extremely vulnerable.

“As in many societies today, it is structures imposed on them that make it difficult to reach out to key populations. Structures create barriers, create stigma and create fear. It is those living with health, socioeconomic and racial disparity that are at higher risk to HIV and AIDS.

“This is why community led mobilisation should be at the heart of the HIV response using community voices to drive policy change.”

This article appears in the September 2020 Issue of Life and Work

Click here to view the article in the magazine.

To view other articles in this issue Click here.

If you would like to view other issues of Life and Work, you can see the full archive here.