Charter aims to stop A.I.D.S.

Press, 1 December 1988, Page 17

Charter aims to stop A.I.D.S.

NZPA London Pop stars, politicians, sportsmen and church leaders have put their names to a charter aimed at stopping the spread of A.I.D.S. More than 250 personalities have promised to use their position to educate people about H.I.V. and A.I.D.S. as well as changing public opinion so victims would be treated with more care, sympathy and dignity. Charter signatories, including actor Michael Caine, said A.I.D.S. has already claimed a “terrifying human and economic toll” and should be recognised as “everyone’s business.” The charter is part of a new $lO million A.I.D.S. awareness advertising campaign by the Health Education Council. The charter will be published in the national press and will be made available around the country for further signatures. Actors, George Cole and Paul Nicholas, singers, Sir Harry Secombe and Rick Astley, the violinist, Sir Yehudi Menuhin, and the cricketer, Graham Gooch, are among the signatories. They said: “Unless we act now many thousands more people will become infected and lives that could have been saved will be lost. “A.I.D.S. is everyone’s business — men, women and children. In a few years most people will know of somebody infected with H.I.V. and realise the tragic consequences of a disease for which there was no cure and no vaccine in sight.” “We commit ourselves to doing all in our power to prevent the spread of H.I.V. and A.I.D.S, encourage greater understanding of the nature of the disease and establish a climate of opinion in which people with H.I.V. and A.I.D.S. are treated with care, sympathy and dignity.”