Churches have been encouraged to promote the uptake of Antiretroviral (ARV) medication among their congregants living with HIV.
The Vice-Chancellor of the University of Blantyre Synod, Professor Isabel Phiri, made the appeal at a conference organised by various organisations involved in the fight against HIV/AIDS. The conference brought together church leaders to discuss the importance of adherence to HIV treatment.
Professor Phiri highlighted the need for extensive research to determine how many people are dying after being taken off their medication on religious grounds. She noted reports indicating that some churches prohibit their members from taking any medication, including ARVs, and that some individuals are taken off ARV treatment under the belief that they have been healed from the virus.
The Chairperson of the Malawi Council of Churches, Reverend Billy Gama, stressed the importance for churches and their leaders to understand the correlation between faith and medication, noting that these two aspects must work together and cannot be separated.
The Vice-Chairperson of the Quadria Association of Malawi, Sheikh Amir Jaafar Kawinga, added, “When you encourage someone to stop taking medicine, you have already determined that that person should not be alive.”
According to UNAIDS, there were 11,000 AIDS-related deaths and 13,875 new HIV infections in Malawi in 2023.
By Evelece Ching’ambe
