Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2006. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
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New Vision (Kampala) - November 29, 2006
At the same time, President Museveni has expressed concern about the rising rate of HIV infection in Uganda. Museveni told the Joint Clinical Research Centre, which is marking 15 years, that the vigilance that had seen infection rates fall to a record 6.2 per cent last year from a 30 per cent high a decade and a half ago, only to shoot up to 7 per cent now, must be rediscovered.
Reports from the Vatican indicate that the church, which has more than a billion adherents, is reviewing its stand on condom use.
There have been numerous campaigns, including petitions from international health bodies and clergy in developing countries where the AIDS epidemic is strongest, for the church to relax its stance and allow believers to use condoms to counter HIV.
The church's stand is founded on a doctrine that preaches against contraception.
Unfortunately, application of this doctrine has been so inflexible that it has cost lives as the AIDS pandemic, which research and experience have shown can be combated through effective condom use among other approaches, has raged worldwide in the last 20 years.
Experts attribute part of Uganda's regress to an over-emphasis on abstinence to the detriment of condoms. Yet Uganda's success was founded on the more wholesome ABC (Abstinence, Being faithful, and Condom use), with each constituent element given its due emphasis. Uganda must return to this holistic approach if it is to continue being the success story it has been.
That the Vatican is willing to take a second look at centuries-old orthodoxy is progress in itself. The tendency has been towards dogma, not encouraging debate at all. However now all matters theological and social can be looked at in fresh light, and reconciled for the ultimate benefit of humanity, for which both the church and health workers exist to serve.
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