The Lutheran Communion publishes book on HIV/AIDS

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina, November 9, 2006

A committee named by the Conference of Bishops and Presidents of the Latin American Churches, Taxi Heathrow Airport a member of the Lutheran World Federation, has completed the collecting, organizing and editing of materials on the practices and thinking with regard to HIV/AIDS. The title of the book published is, So That They Can Live: The Lutheran Communion Listens and Responds to HIV/AIDS. 

The churches of the Lutheran Communion in Latin America have an enormously valuable collection of practical experiences and thinking in their communities and congregations. On the one hand, it is important that the churches and their members be aware of the richness of these experiences and thinking taking place in their midst. On the other hand, according to the editors there is still the need to collect, put into order and make available a written compilation at the ecumenical, continental and world levels, of what is being done daily in the churches and the thinking around it.  

The book is published as a part of the Humberto Ramos Salazar Publishing Fund and is divided into: documents of the Lutheran Communion, biblical and theological foundations, preventive education and care, pastoral action, liturgy and meditation. 

The committee that put together the book was made up by Martin Junge, Rosa Elena Cortés, Gloria Rojas, Vera Walter, Lisandro Orlov and René Krüger, with Orlov and Krüger as editors.   

In the last twenty years, around 600,000 persons have died in the Latin American and Caribbean region because of AIDS. Today, 2 million persons are HIV/AIDS affected and each day approximately 567 are infected with the virus. As in other developing regions, HIV/AIDS disproportionately affects the most productive workers of the Latin American and Caribbean region, infecting nearly 1 of every 200 adults between the ages of 15 and 49.