World AIDS Day 2007 – "Take the Lead – Stop AIDS!"

December 17, 2007

Jennifer Wilson CWS - Durable Solutions and Michael Neuroth, CWS - Education and Advocacy, join Wajahat Latif and Dennis Joseph - CWS Pakistan/Afghanistan in taking a short break outside the UN during a recent visit.

Photo: K. Goldstone/CWS

Church World Service has taken the lead in Pakistan/Afghanistan in providing outstanding health care to refugees and displaced people who would otherwise go without care. By including AIDS awareness and prevention education in their array of health services, CWS P/A is also responding to this year’s World AIDS Day call to “Take the Lead – Stop AIDS.”

The CWS health projects serving Afghan refugees in Pakistan and in remote areas of Afghanistan near the border of Pakistan are clearly making a difference in the lives of the people who otherwise would have no other health care. Mortality rates for mothers giving birth have dropped form 1,900 to 860 inside Afghanistan; and from 500 to 39 for every 100,000 live births in the Afghan refugee community in Pakistan. Newborn mortality rates have dropped from 165 to 28 for every 1,000 newborns inside Afghanistan and from 80 to 19, per 1,000 live births in the Afghan refugee community in Pakistan.

These kinds of statistics paint a story of success. One of the keys to this success is the use of Volunteer Community Health Workers, who are trained in disease prevention and treatment, nutrition, HIV/AIDS awareness, and reproductive health, including safe childbirth at home. These volunteers, elected by the community at large, lead the community in reducing the incidence of preventable diseases and educating their communities about other health issues.

Visiting the New York area, Dennis Joseph, Associate Director for Refugee Programs CWS P/A, spoke at the Church Center at the United Nations to church organizations and to mission staff from the United States and the Netherlands of their successes in promoting child health, nutrition, prevention of infectious diseases and the ways that they have educated and raised awareness about HIV and AIDS.

Speaking to students and professors at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health, Dennis Joseph and Wajahat Latif, Senior Program Advisor with CWS P/A emphasized the way in which the refugee communities feel ownership of the program and how the programs interface with health standards set by both the government of Pakistan and Afghanistan.

HIV and AIDS have had devastating impacts around the globe mainly because many people who are infected with HIV do not know their status and continue to infect others. Reported incidence of AIDS is low in Pakistan and zero in Afghanistan. But CWS P/A attributes these low ratings to insufficient screening processes. By raising awareness and educating about AIDS prevention, CWS is playing an important leadership roll to an explosion of the virus among vulnerable populations of people on the move.

While in the United States CWS P/A staff had the opportunity to meet with staff members from the House Foreign Affairs Committee who are working on legislation that will re-authorize the Presidents Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR). Currently PEPFAR is a country-focused plan which necessarily excludes refugees and displaced people. After hearing Mr. Joseph and Mr. Latif speak, Congressional staff became keen on finding ways to include refugees in the newest version of PEPFAR.

CWS’s Education and Advocacy Washington staff will continue to focus on the United States keeping its promise to stop AIDS by ensuring that the new version of PEPFAR includes support for health care workers who do important prevention and awareness raising, special attention to refugees, orphans and vulnerable children and adequate funding levels for all programs.