AIDS devastating Papua New Guinea (New Zealand).Wellington--In the same week of February that Time magazine ran a cover story on AIDS in Africa, a priest was warning about a similar epidemic ravaging a country on the other side of the world. Father Michael McCabe, director of the New Zealand New Zealand (zē`lənd), island country (2005 est. pop. 4,035,000), 104,454 sq mi (270,534 sq km), in the S Pacific Ocean, over 1,000 mi (1,600 km) SE of Australia. The capital is Wellington; the largest city and leading port is Auckland. Catholic Bioethics bioethics, in philosophy, a branch of ethics concerned with issues surrounding health care and the biological sciences. These issues include the morality of abortion, euthanasia, in vitro fertilization, and organ transplants (see transplantation, medical). Centre, was conducting a seminar in the highlands of Papua New Guinea Papua New Guinea (păp`  ə, –y for 22 Catholic bishops from that country and the nearby Solomon Islands Solomon Islands, independent Commonwealth nation (2005 est. pop. 538,000), c.15,500 sq mi (40,150 sq km), SW Pacific, E of New Guinea. The islands that constitute the nation of the Solomon Islands—Guadalcanal, Malaita, New Georgia, the Santa Cruz Islands, . He had been invited by their bishops' conference to address them on bioethical issues. He warned the bishops that Papua New Guinea, a nation of 4.9 million people, was facing an epidemic similar to the one that was devastating dev·as·tate tr.v. dev·as·tat·ed, dev·as·tat·ing, dev·as·tates 1. To lay waste; destroy. 2. To overwhelm; confound; stun: was devastated by the rude remark. subSaharan Africa, according to a report in the April edition of "Welcome," the Catholic newspaper of the Archdiocese of Wellington. Doctors working in Papua New Guinea have estimated that the country risks losing about 20% of its population in nine years--a million people. In the highlands, men who work in the mines live away from their families. Many have sex with prostitutes who are infected, and when the men return to their families they spread the infection at home. Complicating the problem is the fact that polygamy polygamy: see marriage. polygamy Marriage to more than one spouse at a time. Although the term may also refer to polyandry (marriage to more than one man), it is often used as a synonym for polygyny (marriage to more than one woman), which appears is still practised in some parts of Papua New Guinea, which comprises the eastern half of the island of New Guinea. Victims of AIDS are sometimes ostracized-or worse. Father McCabe told of accounts of people with HIV HIV (Human Immunodeficiency Virus), either of two closely related retroviruses that invade T-helper lymphocytes and are responsible for AIDS. There are two types of HIV: HIV-1 and HIV-2. HIV-1 is responsible for the vast majority of AIDS in the United States. or AIDS being thrown into the river with their hands tied. The bishops at the seminar were considering how to best respond pastorally to the unfolding tragedy. "They could see there was a major job in educating their communities on what is needed, which included reaffirming the need for abstinence before marriage and fidelity within marriage," Father McCabe said. The bishops' conference has a subcommittee on AIDS and it hopes to receive financial assistance from a donation that Australian aid agencies had earmarked for AIDS programs in Papua New Guinea. The seminar was sponsored by Caritas in Australia and New Zealand. (Zenit, April 15) |
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