Word: arabized
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Arab countries have some of the world's fastest-growing rates of HIV infection, but their governments and religious authorities have been slow to address the problem. That was the message last week from a Cairo conference organized by the Arab League and the U.N. Development Program, which drew together more than 300 leading religious figures from 20 Arab countries, and was jointly led by Sheikh Mohamed Sayed Tantawi, the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar Mosque - which is influential throughout the Sunni Muslim world - and Pope Shenouda III, head of the Coptic Orthodox Church and President of the Middle East...
...conference was told that a new HIV infection occurs every ten minutes in the Arab world, and the region is threatened with a generalized AIDS pandemic similar to that of sub-Saharan Africa unless bold and effective measures are quickly implemented. Anywhere from 67,000 to 200,000 new infections occurred - and some 58,000 people died from AIDS - in the Arab world in 2005, but accurate data and surveys are lacking...
...Some called on the faithful to accept AIDS patients and not close the doors of mercy in their faces even if they are viewed as having sinned - God forgives, and so must society, was the message. Religious leaders have a pivotal role in the campaign against AIDS in the Arab world, given the taboo nature of any discussion of sexuality and sexual freedom and the deeply religious nature of the prevailing social norms. Plainly, as the HIV-infection figures show, sexual relationships outside of marriage are a reality in the Arab world, but those occur behind closed doors. The political...
...Khadija Moalla, the regional coordinator for UNDP/HARPAS, a regional HIV/AIDS program, is extremely depressed and frustrated. She has been active in this campaign since 2002, and admits that she and other activists face a daunting challenge. "There is silence, denial, stigma and discrimination regarding HIV in the Arab World," says Moalla. Although most Arab governments have national programs to combat AIDS, these are nowhere near equal to the scale of the challenge. For example, the amount of treatment drugs made available through the public health system in Sudan is well short of the number of infections in that country...
...Eighty-five percent of those who are HIV positive are unaware that they are," says Moalla. Anti-retroviral drug treatment is available through the public health system in many of these countries, but few seek it also because of the social stigma and discrimination. Nor have Arab countries adopted laws to protect the civil rights of HIV-AIDS sufferers. Some statistics suggest that 4 out of 5 women HIV sufferers in the Arab World were infected by their husbands. And when the husband dies of the disease, his family will often disown the woman for fear she may be contagious...