World AIDS Day – We need AIDS vaccine

30 November 2007

“A vaccine against AIDS remains the best hope of ultimately saving millions of lives” writes Zita Gurmai, President of PES Women, in the latest edition of The Parliament Magazine.

Zita recently visited Kigali, the capital of Rwanda, where she witnessed the devastating effects of AIDS and met health workers involved in trials supported by the International Aids Vaccine Initiative.

She said “What I have seen is that Aids devastates families and communities, reduces economic growth and deprives resource-limited countries of teachers, healthcare providers and agricultural workers.  For women, poverty, economic dependence and lack of power to negotiate health and sexual matters fuel the spread of the pandemic. Today HIV/Aids is undermining progress towards reducing poverty and raising living standards.”

Zita was touched by the words of Dr Agnes Binagwaho, Executive Secretary of Rwanda’s National Commission to Fight Aids, who told her about Rwanda’s struggle against HIV/Aids and underlined the importance of international community involvement to save lives and to find long-term solutions to HIV/Aids.