EAST Lancashire people are being urged to include AIDS awareness in their New Year's resolutions by a local church leader.

The Bishop of Burnley, the Rt Rev John Goddard, said he was horrified at his own ignorance of the scale of the HIV and AIDS epidemic after a visitor from South Africa told him about the scale of the tragedy there.

He spoke as local health officials revealed there had been a rise in the number of AIDS infections through heterosexual sex in East Lancashire during the last 12 months.

Joan Marston, who works with the children's hospice movement in Bloemfontein, visited Lancashire in October and told church officials how one child is orphaned by AIDS and HIV every 15 seconds there. She also told how almost a whole generation had been wiped out, with many children being taken on by grandmothers, because fathers and mothers had died.

Bishop Goddard said: "One resolution we could make for the New Year is to inform ourselves carefully of the tragedy of HIV and AIDS.

"I will make a resolution about my need for more exercise in 2002 and I suspect many others will do the same, but I know this is trivial in comparison with the big issues. I am also going to seek to be better informed about such matters as HIV and AIDS and recognise its impact here."

The scale of the AIDS crisis in South Africa has gone beyond epidemic proportions, with 80 per cent of people between 14 and 45 being infected with the HIV virus in the township of Botshabelo, just outside Bloemfontein.

Number of cases in East Lancashire are relatively low, although health workers dealing with the disease believe for the number of diagnosed cases a further 12 per cent go undiagnosed.

There were eight new cases reported in 2000 across East Lancashire, compared with 13 in 1999, although there was a rise in the number of infections through heterosexual sex.

It brought the total number of people living with HIV and AIDS in the area to 50.

Bishop Goddard added: "Informing ourselves means that our prayers can be focused.

"We could also work with our sister diocese of Bloemfontein and agencies such as Christian Aid, to relieve the suffering of so many and assist them in their work of education and access to resources."