Interview: AIDS Expert on Rescuing Children from the Pandemic
It was not long ago when the Church had the mentality that HIV/AIDS is a "gay disease" and that those infected should be shamed and isolated. Times have changed and now the Church and other Christian organizations have moved to the forefront in caring for victims and spearheading campaigns to remove the stigma associated with people living with the disease.
Dr. Scott Todd, a pediatric AIDS expert and director of the AIDS Initiative of Compassion International, is one such Christian leader working to care for victims of HIV/AIDS.
In a recent interview, Dr. Todd shared about Compassion's efforts to care and raise awareness on the plight of millions of vulnerable children, mostly in Africa, whose lives have been ravaged by the epidemic.
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CP: We don't hear that much about the effects of HIV/AIDS on children. How have these young lives been affected by the disease?
Todd: AIDS is a disease that is a massive enemy in our mission to secure the physical well-being of children. But not only their physical well-being, but their social and emotional well-being as well because AIDS is not just a medical concern but it also has extraordinary effects on a person's sense of self-worth and value, and their relationship with others – the stigma, discrimination and isolation. All this leads to a great amount of pain and hurt.
So it is hitting us in all of those areas that we are trying to provide growth and opportunity to kids.
Do you know that half of the new infections are happening this year in children and youth? So when people talk about those prevention strategies it's such a staggering gap to not talk about children.
To give you some of the numbers on that, everyday over 1,000 babies are going to be born with HIV/AIDS already flowing in their blood, and that is an infection in those babies that is largely preventable. We see very few cases of that in the United States because we have the treatment and we do the intervention.
In most of the world - in fact 90 percent of those kids are Africans – the mother doesn't even know her status. She doesn't know that she's HIV-positive. That is the first arm of our fight – prevention. We know there is no cure. There are drugs – anti-retrovirals that can be effective in treatment. But without a cure we like to say prevention is the only cure.
That means you have to develop your strategy around kids. How do you prevent them from being infected. I mentioned one – prevention of mother-to-child transmission – and the other is giving young men and women a solid basis of knowledge, motivation, and commitment to abstinence and purity. We know that is not the only cause, that there are many cases of coercion and many girls are suffering through those relationships and rape. We need to find strategy to protect them, to secure them to give them a place of strength and stability.
Our main mandate is to raise a generation that is HIV free. And that is a possible thing to do. We aren't just talking about some pipedream here. We are talking about something that can be done and that is what we are committed to doing – preventing HIV in newborns and in youths.
CP: Could you explain how so many of these children are infected with HIV?
Todd: The mother is HIV-positive and when they give birth there is a 40 percent chance that the virus will transfer to the baby. Much of that is during pregnancy and at labor when the baby is being delivered the placenta barrier is broken and the mixing of the mother's blood with the baby's fluid exposes them to the virus.
Some of it also happens through breast-feeding. Those are the ways that the virus moves from the mother to the baby. And if you give that mother a small dose of the anti retro-viral drug, you can shut down the HIV in the mother enough so it won't jump to the baby.
According to the new 2007 UNAIDS report, there are about 3 million children infected with HIV. When I say children I mean under the age of 15. Last year 330,000 children died and they died because they don't have access to those anti retro-viral drugs which can treat them. And the reason why they don't have them is simple, because they are too poor. They live in poverty and that is the reason they don't have that access.
Now there is another issue related to children – the problem of orphans. We have 12 million children who have lost at least one of their parents due to AIDS, 90 percent of those are African kids. What you need to be hearing me say is the number of children infected each year is 90 percent African, the number of children who died last year (the 330,000) is 90 percent African, and the number of orphans is 90 percent African children. That is why when you talk with Compassion about our AIDS initiative we will be talking about Africa because that is where the firestorm is the fiercest.
We are working outside of Africa; we are working in Honduras, India, and Thailand, but the vast majority of our effort is in African countries.
CP: In your opinion, why are people unaware of the massive number of children infected or affected by HIV/AIDS?
Todd: Well, I hate to be blunt about it but people just don't care that much about children. Children just don't seem to get on the agenda that often. Children just don't have lobbyist. Every other group of people has their political lobbyists, every other group of people seems to have their activist – people who go out and champion their cause. Children don't have that; they are not organize for that. They have very few who will be their champion, who will go out and speak on their behalf.
That is exactly what Compassion is all about. We are advocates for children. We want to speak out on behalf of them. The Scripture says to speak out for those who don't have a voice. We want to represent their interest. That is a big part of why people don't know.
What we like to remind people is all these big and important people – the ambassadors, the leaders and even the president – they all have something in common – they're all former children. Not only that, but the most influential events in their lives which shape who they are happened in their childhood.
So if we want to go reach the big important people and have influence with them we believe that we need to reach them earlier - to go to those big and important people when they are five years old, because for better or for worse, those childhood experiences are either going to rob them of their potential and lead them to be the type of leader who is corrupt, or to be leaders that are godly men and women, who have integrity who have servant-leader heart, who's values come from their relationship with God through Christ.
That is what we are trying to do – to reach them early, develop those big and important people and see them enter into a relationship with Christ and see them have a secure childhood protected from abuse.
There's another thing. In terms of a mission perspective, most people come to know Christ during their childhood and youth. It is like 80 percent come to know the Lord during that period in life, yet from a mission perspective – we spend 85 percent of our mission money on adults oriented outreaches. There is just a disconnect. Are we seeing the right people for whatever we are trying to do? If we are trying to prevent AIDS? Are we looking at the children, because that is where the greatest hope lies in trying to protect the children and raise an AIDS-free generation.
If we are looking at mission and trying to reach people with the Gospel – are we looking at the children? They not only represent over half the population of the planet they are the most likely to respond to the Good News.
CP: You mentioned the UNAIDS overestimated the AIDS pandemic. Does the new and lower estimate of 33 million people living with AIDS, down from nearly 40 million, have any practical effect on the fight against HIV/AIDS?
Todd: I really don't think it does. Whether it is 40 million or 33 million it is still a staggering and alarming number. It is still a pandemic, it is still the world's worst health crisis. I think people's minds are so numb to those numbers that if you say 33 million or 40 million it just doesn't change much in the mind or heart. People either care and respond or they are going to remain indifferent and change the channel and watch some more TV. It is one of those things that at that level it probably doesn't translate to a lot of impact in terms of perception and mobilizing the public to do something.
CP: How would you as a Christian with a science background convince a fellow Christian that HIV/AIDS is the disease that most needs their attention and help?
Todd: I would convince a fellow Christian first of all to walk in the footsteps of our Lord Jesus Christ. If we look how he did ministry we can hardly flip a page of the Gospel without seeing Jesus in the midst of raw humanity spitting at and rubbing it in a man's eye to give sight, telling a man to get up and walk and be healthy. A woman who comes up in a crowd and touches his garment and he is so filled with the power of healing that it flows out of him and heals her and he knows that.
That spirit is the same spirit that dwells in us. We have the power of he holy spirit and the ministry of our Lord…Jesus went about teaching in the synagogue and healed every disease and sickness among the people.
That is the holistic Gospel and that is what the world needs to see from us. We need to care about the whole person and show the world the real muscle of the Gospel in word and deed.
Now when you talk bout prioritizing, I wouldn't want to say AIDS is more important than malaria or tuberculosis is more important than childhood diarrhea. The fact is all of those diseases are a scourge and not meant to be what God designed us to experience. There is no reason why 30,000 children should be dying again today from a preventable and treatable disease.
If the body of Christ would wake up to its mandate and mission, if the body of Christ would look at the precedent and example set by Jesus being not about the proclamation but about the demonstration of the Gospel then we would stop those preventable death. The issue for Christians is not how do I prioritize among all of these opportunities to serve the hurting, the issue is getting the Christian to realize that serving the hurting people of the world is what we were rescued and given grace to do.
CP: Do you have anything you want to add?
Todd: I'm very hopeful. I know when we talk about AIDS, the pandemic, the numbers, the children that are suffering and dying it is easy to grow weary and despair. But I believe that this is the church's greatest opportunity to be who God called us to be. And the Compassion is something that is moving the Kingdom towards something that is more holistic Gospel. I love being part of that. I have the sense that although our history is one of stigma, discrimination, and not caring there are a lot of good people who want to do the right thing who just need to know what to do and who to trust. So I'm very hopeful of what God is doing right now is a wonderful thing and we get to be a part of it.
