31.10.2018

The Impact of HIV/AIDS and the UEM member Churches' Response

The spread of HIV infection and AIDS has been one of the focus areas of intervention of UEM. Together with it member churches UEM addressed challenges posed by the spread of HIV/AIDS. For this reason, The UEM Africa Region organized a workshop entitled “Zero New HIV infections, Zero discrimination, and Zero AIDS-related to deaths. The workshop begun on 27^th to 31^st October 2018 and was hosted by the Evangelical Lutheran Church in the Republic of Namibia (ELCR) in Windhoek. 15 delegates who are mainly medical doctors and psycho-socio therapists from UEM member churches including EPR, EAR, ELCT/KAD, ELCT/NWD, ELCT/ECD, ELCT/ NED, ELCB, ELCRN and ECC attended the mentioned workshop. A participatory method was used to allow all participants to share about specific experiences from their own contexts. Different questions were posed and discussed as follows: 

• What are the roles played by UEM member churches to fight HIV/AIDS and what are the challenges faced by churches when addressing HIV/AIDS.
• How the program did increase access to care for people living with HIV/AIDS?
• Did the Church programs contribute to reduce HIV risk behaviors among people living with HIV/AIDS individuals and high-risk individuals?

At the end of the discussion and shared experience from participants, it was realized that the roles played by the churches are seen in different ways:

• HIV/AIDS Programs done by churches have improved and increase of awareness is seen by the number of clients or people who willingly attend the test of HIV. However, the challenge of new cases of HIV infections are still faced especially among pregnant women in Africa region.
• Different church leaders provide spiritual teaching on how to avoid risk behavior, Christian ethics and faithfulness. Reproductive health topics are also taught in schools as well.
• Psychosocial and capacity building of socioeconomic care and income generating activity are provided to people living with HIV and AIDS (PLWHA).
• Strengthening PLWHA to face stigma and denial challenge by promoting and upholding the basics rights of PLWA (Popularization of the law).
• The health of people living with HIV has improved with ART. Cases of death are becoming rare (especially in urban areas). The number of PLWHA with undetectable viral load has increased (Urban area).
• At the level of hospitals (under the program), the risks of infection are reduced by the sterilization of the materials, the transfusion security, the post-exposure prevention, etc.

Despite the above mentioned achievements and roles played by churches, some challenges are still faced:

• Most of PLWHA are poor people, and are not able to pay for opportunistic infections treatment and biological monitoring (CD4, Viral load tracking…)
• People have tendency to think that HIV/AIDS is no longer  a problem/attention hence focus should be oriented in other areas of life
• Communities were highly demanding compared to inadequate resources available

The following recommendations were underlined:

• UEM member churches are encouraged to continue supporting PLWHA physically, spiritually and psychologically.
• Churches should establish own data base regarding HIV and AIDS information

• UEM should facilitate and support more study visits and trainings regarding to HIV and AIDS in Africa region

Rev. Dr. Muke Nagaju, head of the UEM Regional Office in Dar-es-Salaam