MOSCOW, April 20 (RIA Novosti) - An interdenominational AIDS prevention committee is to be set up in Russia, organizers of the international AIDS pandemic conference on April 18-19 in Moscow said at a news conference at RIA Novosti.
"A key decision of the conference is our call to religious organizations to take a more proactive stance on AIDS prevention. We plan to set up a standing interdenominational committee to carry on the work launched by this conference," says Vladimir Samoilov, deputy chairman of the Evangelic Baptist Christian Union.
According to Samoilov, the committee plans to hold training seminars for church service workers, legal counseling for AIDS patients and their families, support for a project on setting up AIDS-related consultant services and hot lines in the province, work with AIDS patients in prisons and AIDS-infected people, in monasteries, dioceses and communities.
The conference participants deem it necessary to overcome "simplistic sexual education schemes" in the media that should, in their opinion, become more responsible in promoting spiritual and moral values among the public.
The participants called on the Interdenominational Council to include AIDS-related subjects in its agenda. They also called on the state and the public to cooperate actively with religious organizations in countering the AIDS epidemic.
According to Pyotr Mitskevich, chairman of the In Russia (Na Rusi) organization, which is part of the Evangelic Baptist Christian Union, "the pandemic of AIDS has been on the rise steadily".
"Every six minutes, a person between 15 to 24 years old catches AIDS in the world. By 2015, 74 million people of employment age are estimated to have been infected with AIDS," Mitskevich noted.
More than 160 people participated in the conference dedicated to the prospect of cooperation among the state and religious and public organization, with top Christian orthodox, Islamic, Jewish, Buddhist, Catholic and Protestant leaders among them.
