Cardinal Bertone calls for free AIDS treatment in Africa

June 23, 2012: Pope Benedict XVI's secretary of state called on Friday for access to free treatment for AIDS, as he gave the opening address at the 8^th International AIDS Conference. The event, being held at the San Gallicano Institute in Rome, had the theme "Long live mothers and children."
Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone made a strong appeal for international cooperation to assist AIDS patients. "In the presence of so many ministers and persons in charge of health care, I would like to appeal to the international community, to states and to donors," he said. "Let us provide soon to AIDS patients free and effective treatment. Let us do so beginning with the mothers and children.
Citing programs sponsored by the World Health Organization and the Catholic Community of Sant'Egidio, the cardinal said studies confirm that "universal access to treatments is attainable, scientifically proved and economically possible. It’s not a utopia: it is possible!"
He called it a duty to reach every pregnant woman with the virus and provide her the therapies to prevent her child from being infected. "We cannot continue to tolerate the death of so many mothers; we cannot think of thousands of children as a lost generation. Nothing is lost: Africa has sufficient energies and it is the Continent of hope! Hence we are asked for a new joint effort to protect woman as mother," the cardinal appealed.Regarding Economic factors, Cardinal Bertone said cost shouldn't be an obstacle. He urged health ministers, researchers and doctors, agencies, and donors to "make the greatest effort to alleviate the pain of so many sick mothers and to protect human life, to defend it from conception to its natural end. For every man,