Tanzanian HIV/AIDS debate hots up

A leading Tanzanian health official has warned religious and civic leaders against "infighting" and "finger pointing" in the war against HIV/AIDS in the country.

Herman Lupogo, chairman of the Tanzanian Commission for AIDS (TACAIDS), the leading agency fighting the spread of HIV/AIDS in Tanzania, told IRIN on Monday that an open and accurate debate was the only positive way forward in preventing the spread of HIV/AIDS in the country.

"While discussing these issues, religious and civic leaders should recognise the potential impact of their comments and the difficulties involved in withdrawing them," Lupogo said. "When it comes to the fight against HIV/AIDS, we look at them [social and religious leaders] as role models, and a lot of people listen to what they say. Therefore, they should be pretty careful about what they say."

He made the comments following several weeks of high-profile debate within the Tanzanian media and among civic and religious leaders over whether condoms are an effective method of preventing of HIV/AIDS transmission.

The debate was recently sparked off by Reginald Mengi, TACAIDS commissioner and media owner, who criticised religious leaders' stand against condom use. In a hard-hitting statement, Mengi said religious leaders who discouraged their congregation from using condoms would be "participating in [the] murder" of every believer who contracted AIDS from unprotected sex.

Religious leaders - Catholic and Muslim alike - responded strongly to these allegations. Cardinal Polycarp Pengo, the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Dar es Salaam, reportedly said that the use of condoms had been scientifically proved to be ineffective. Some Muslim leaders, for their part, reiterated the claims that condoms merely promoted prostitution.

Lupogo said none of the attacks - neither Mengi's, nor the subsequent reactions - had been constructive, as "we are together in this campaign and we shouldn't start pointing fingers at one another", and some statements being made were not based on scientific fact. "People like Mr Mengi are very influential, so when they come up with a statement, it certainly carries a certain amount of weight, and definitely, if it happened to be the wrong one, it also carries a lot of damage, which ever way you look at it," Lupogo said.

Lupogo, however said that there was "definitely" a place for an accurate debate in the fight against HIV/AIDS, as it made people "more aware of the issues" at hand and encouraged others "to think about what is happening, and look around for ways of explaining things".

While Tanzania had come a long way during the last decade to reduce the stigma attached to HIV/AIDS, "it is still not mentioned in some rural areas, although they are burying their relatives every day", he added.

[This item is delivered to the English Service of the UN's IRIN humanitarian information unit, but may not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations.]