RNS: Ramadan a remedy for AIDS

Here’s something that could have world religious leaders (especially the Roman Catholic Church) celebrating: leading experts on HIV/AIDS push for abstinence as a part of the solution.

What’s more, they have taken their inspiration from religious groups around the globe.

Justin Parkhurst of the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine and Alan Whiteside of the University of KwaZulu-Natal have both argued that a month-long abstinence period might offer tremendous results in battling HIV/AIDS in African nations, The Guardian of London reports.

Research has demonstrated that there is a “viral-load spike” in newly infected persons whereby they are more likely totransmit thevirus in the month that they were exposed to it.  “Up to 45 per cent of HIV transmissions result from sex during the highly infections ‘spikes’ period,” The Guardian said.

Whiteside and Parkhurst believe, however, that religion could point the way to help prevent future spreads of the virus.  Muslim countries such as Pakistan, Bangladesh and Indonesia have a 0.2 per cent HIV prevalence rate, often attributed to the nearly universal practice of male circumcision (map of prevalence of circumcision, care of WHO).  Many African nations, especially in Northwestern Africa, however, have equally prevalent rates of circumcision.

Whiteside’s hypothesis: it’s because of the month-long “ban on sex during daylight hours of Ramadan, as well as strict teachings on alcohol use, homosexuality and extra-marital sex.”

Christian churches in African nations have often pushed for abstinence-only campaigns, denouncing condom use.  Whiteside, author of HIV/AIDS: A Very Short Introduction by Oxford University Press, is quick to point out, however, that a month-long devotion to condom use could also give similar results as month-long abstinence.

Source: Religion News Service