Africa Lutheran Communion

Sub-Saharan Africa is the most hit region in the world as far as HIV/AIDS is concerned. For the past 25 years of the discovery of the HIV/AIDS, more than 20 million have died of AIDS in Africa and we do have around 25 million of people infected by the virus. In the global village, Sub-Saharan Africans are a small minority numbering just about 600 million, while any of the other races- be they Caucasians, Chinese, or Indians- are over one billion each. Despite accounting for 10% of human race, Sub-Saharan Africans now have about 70% of all HIV/AIDS cases.

Currently, HIV/AIDS pandemic is not leveling off yet and there is an increased feminization of the pandemic. In Africa alone, the percentage of women among adults living with HIV/AIDS is 60% according to UNAIDS. However, we do have many countries in Africa that were able to bring their prevalence down in 2006, such as Uganda, Kenya, Senegal, Zimbabwe, Zambia…but the numbers of people died of AIDS were still very high too.

The prevalence of HIV/AIDS in Africa is different from country to country. But the Southern African region continues to bear one the heaviest burdens on HIV and AIDS in the world.  In a period of one and half decades, some countries in Southern Africa, such as Swaziland, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Lesotho and South Africa have recorded unprecedented crisis levels with an estimate of 35% - 39% of people aged 15 – 49 years infected with HIV virus, with about one in three or four people with HIV being a young man under the age of 25.

What are the Lutheran churches responses to the HIV/AIDS pandemic in Africa?

Some churches like the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Tanzania (ELCT), the Ethiopian Evangelical Church Mekane Yesus and others started the work on HIV/AIDS since the 80s, many churches have started in the 90s but all the works were left with a group of people or to the health systems.

In 2002, the Lutheran World Federation (LWF) held its first ever global campaign and the campaign themes were centered on two issues: breaking the silence and the Compassion Care and Conversion document. The campaign resolved that we must get the church leaders on board in the fight against AIDS by engaging the whole church: Bishops, presidents, clergy, lay people, and congregation.

The church must provide the welcoming community to those infected and affected by HIV/AIDS epidemic, to be there when people suffer as a sign of presence care, compassion and to speak the truth about the spread of HIV/AIDS and its prevention including the behavior change that is necessary. The church must fight stigma and discrimination against the infected and the affected.

Our campaign was aimed at motivating and equipping our member churches to be effective partners in the nationally coordinated strategies to fight HIV/AIDS.

For this purpose we organized training workshops in various fields:

• Capacity building for AIDS programming skills, for the church leaderships per sub-regions;

• on Voluntary Counseling and Confidential Testing,

• Home Based Care,

• all focused on strengthening the capacity of faith based organizations in the field of HIV/AIDS and enabling them to assist in scaling up national efforts.

• We also organized peer education workshops for Youth and for church leadership

• Life skills were the main focus of the Youth workshops

In short, we have mobilized and equipped various churches in Africa to think and fight HIV/AIDS strategically and we insisted the importance of developing the church policy on HIV/AIDS to guide their activities. 

For the future, we need to work in the Sub-Regional structures of LWF in Africa; that is LUCSA, LUCCEA and LUCCWA. A great deal of work needs to be done to motivate, facilitate, enable and build the capacity of member churches within the sub-regions, to respond urgently and purposefully to the AIDS pandemic problems in Africa.

There are no quick solutions for the fight against HIV/AIDS. We need LONG TERM commitment to prevention, care, and treatment. We need to know what do we best and how to scale up the interventions that have proved effective.

We need to change our language and vocabulary as well. One must not say anymore that “HIV/AIDS is a death sentence”; instead we must change to “HIV/AIDS is LIFE CONDITION, so that despite of having HIV/AIDS we continue to live”. We encourage the use of language such as “AIDS is a chronic disease. It is preventable and manageable” .This is because of the availability of the Anti-Retroviral (ARV) treatment that prolongs the life of people living with the virus. ARV or Anti-Retroviral Therapy (ART) helps calm fears and changes attitudes towards HIV. It used to be very costly but it is now much more affordable and it is FREE in many countries such as Botswana, Kenya...etc ART, as part of a prevention plan, can significantly reduce HIV transmission too. Overall, the number of people accessing ART in the developing countries has increased from 400,000 to over 1.3 million since the beginning of 2004. Treating AIDS may restore lives and revive hope, but one should not forget that it is not a strategy to end the pandemic; we must not forget to work on the prevention

In conclusion, given the fact that more than half of those newly infected with HIV today are between 15 and 24 years old, we must accord top priority to the seriousness of the young people being at the centre of the global HIV/AIDS pandemic.  We need to deliver a strong leadership making sure that every young person in our church and community is equipped with the facts about HIV/AIDS and how to prevent it. Thus, our future activities must be centered to the young people.

Mamy J Ranaivoson MD, MPH

Program Assistant for Health Ministries ELCA-GM

Regional Coordinator of LWF for HIV and AIDS in Africa