A Patron is a person of distinction under whose protection another is placed. These four Holy men were chosen because of their example of friendship and faith in the face of diseases of pandemic proportion.
There are 40 million humans worldwide that are HIV positive, 2.5 million of which are children. 4.1 million were newly infected and 2.8 million died of AIDS in 2005. Since 1981, 25 million people have died as a result of AIDS. This is a pandemic.