Church wants Aids tests
2004-01-13 11:00
Special Report
President Jacob Zuma has met with American businessman Bill Gates to discuss issues relating to the country's HIV/Aids pandemic.
Trichur, India - India's Roman Catholic bishops have asked the federal government to make HIV and Aids tests compulsory before granting marriage licenses to help prevent the spread of the deadly disease.
Bishop Yoohanan Chrysostom said the church had called for the requirement to stop people transmitting the disease to their future marriage partners and to reduce the number of people becoming infected.
It would also prevent people who are unaware they have HIV/Aids from passing it on.
He said in the absence of national legislation, the church is planning to annul marriages in which a partner has been deceived by another who contracted HIV/Aids before marriage.
"But the efforts of the church would be strengthened only if appropriate legislation is enacted by the government," said a statement released Monday night by the Catholic Bishops Conference of India.
India's Health Ministry says about 4.58 million people, about 0.8% of India's adult population, have the HIV virus. The government gives no figures on the number of infected children.
India's 149 Roman Catholic bishops - including three cardinals and 26 archbishops - are attending a January 7-14 annual conference of bishops at Trichur, 80km north of Cochin, in southern Kerala state.
On Monday, the bishops discussed how the church should reorganise its health mission to contain the disease.
Fighting Aids is a major mission for the 4 745 Catholic hospitals and clinics across India, and the church runs 39 hospitals to treat Aids patients exclusively.
The bishops would urge young people to be honest about whether they have the disease before seeking to wed, said Bishop Chrysostom.
"Because of the increasing cases of Aids cases in India, the church feels that priests should be convinced of the health status of couples before solemnizing their marriage," he said.
He said mandatory Aids tests for all church weddings would also put fear in the minds of young adults about the risks of the disease.
- AP