The Pontifical Council for Health Care, in his message on World AIDS Days, urged for “university access to therapies for those who are infected, the prevention of transmission from mother to child, and education in lifestyles that involve, as well, an approach that is truly correct and responsible as regards sexuality.”
The Vatican message—autographed by Archbishop Zygmunt Zimowski, the president of the Pontifical Council for Health Care- articulated the significance of facilitating the medical assistance for AIDS victims. In sub-Saharan Africa, where 1.8 million people die of AIDS each year, the statement noted that many victims “could lead normal lives if they only had access to suitable pharmacological therapies.” Since medical help is available, these deaths “are no longer justifiable,” the Vatican paper said.
On the subject of AIDS prevention , the Pontifical Council called for support of “a lifestyle that privileges abstinence, conjugal faithfulness and the rejection of sexual promiscuity.” The devotion to that way of life, the statement said, would pave the way for the “integral development” of African society, for which Pope Benedict XVI called in Africae Munus, the apostolic exhortation that he released in November.