HIV prevention conundrum: did the Pope have a case?

Autor: R. Kamara, J. L. Adaktar, F. Ciantia, R. B. Kampala, G. W. Pariyo, L. Bassani, T. Odong, L. Ojom, S. Orach
Rok vydání: 2009
Předmět:
Zdroj: Journal of Medicine and the Person. 7:63-69
ISSN: 2036-3877
2035-9411
DOI: 10.1007/s12682-009-0018-x
Popis: “Distributing condoms is not the answer to curbing the spread of HIV in Africa”, Pope Benedict XVI said heading to Yaounde, Cameroon, as part of a 7-day pilgrimage to the african continent in March 2009. This paper discusses this statement and reports the results of the strategy sexual transmission of the HIV in Uganda, with the leadership of President Museveni, has acted with a clear and determined strategy called the “ABC” approach (abstinence, delay of sexual debut, fidelity, use of condoms). As reported in this paper the major factor for the decline of prevalence of HIV in Uganda was the reduction in casual, multi-partners sex (the B of ABC). There is limited or no direct evidence that the common and popular prevention measures [including condom social marketing, voluntary counselling and testing programs (VCT), syndromic or mass treatment of sexually transmitted infections (STIs)] have contributed to the reduction or slowing down of HIV in generalised epidemics. The drivers of the changes happening in several African countries instead are behaviours so clearly in line with Catholic teaching. Moreover, the recent levelling trends of HIV prevalence in Uganda can be attributed to the ‘moving away’ from the original and verified indigenous Ugandan strategy due to pressure by Western experts and organisations to change the focus from the effective A and (especially) B to the debatable C. As a conclusion, data and scientific evidence suggest that instead of being criticised, the Pope’s message about condoms should be a wakeup call to the proven realities regarding the dynamics of HIV transmission, not only in Uganda but in all of sub-Saharan Africa.
Databáze: OpenAIRE
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