The safe way to prevent sexual transmission of AIDS/HIV is to practice sexuality within the context of marriage, said the Vatican 's annual message for the Dec 1 World AIDS Day.

The Vatican message strongly urged legal reforms to give more equitable health care to AIDS patients in developing countries and asked pharmaceutical companies to make anti-AIDS drugs more accessible to the poor.

The text was signed by Cardinal Javier Lozano Barragan, president of the Pontifical Council for Health Care Workers.

Cardinal Barragan noted that in 2005 more than 40 million people around the world were infected with HIV, which causes AIDS. During 2005, it was estimated that 4.9 million people contracted the virus and that 3.1 million died of AIDS.

“HIV and AIDS continue to spread death in every country of the world,” the message said.

It noted the reduction of HIV/AIDS transmission through contaminated blood transfusions or from mother to child in pregnancy, but said sexual transmission remained significant.

“It is greatly favoured by a type of pansexual culture that devalues sexuality, reducing it to a mere pleasure without further significance,” it said.

The message cited the Church's teaching that sexual activity outside marriage is wrong and said that teaching formed the core of truly “safe prevention” against AIDS.

The sixth commandment against adultery constitutes “the fulcrum of authentic prevention of AIDS in the area of sexual activity,” it said.

The message called for greater resources for AIDS patients in poor countries, saying that basic medical assistance is still denied to a large part of the world's population. Everyone has an equal right to good health, it said.

At the same time those seeking health care have “the duty to conduct themselves and lead lifestyles harmonious with the protection of health, and to reject (lifestyles) that compromise health,” it said.

The Vatican message underlined the Church's contributions to the AIDS response, noting that 26.7 percent of the centres caring for AIDS patients worldwide are Catholic-run.

In addition, it said, local churches and institutes carry out a multitude of pastoral programmes for patients, their families and orphans of AIDS victims.

Last year, Pope John Paul II instituted the Good Samaritan Foundation to provide assistance to AIDS/HIV sufferers around the world. In its first year of activity, the foundation has provided significant amounts of economic aid for the purchase of medicines, Cardinal Barragan said. He did not provide specific figures.

(CNS)