'Condoms clearly don't work'
2005-01-24 12:49
Special Report
The South African government has announced a joint venture to reduce the cost of anti-retroviral drugs with a Swiss company.
Durban - The head of Catholic Bishops Conference in Southern Africa, Cardinal Wilfred Napier, criticised the government on Monday for promoting condoms in the fight against HIV/Aids "when it's clearly not working".
Napier said only drastic change in sexual behaviour would stop the spread of the disease.
"Why can't we follow the example of the one country in Africa, Uganda, that has successfully reduced its infection rate from something like 29% to 5% in just ten years?"
Napier said in Uganda everyone from the top down, starting with the president, had preached the same message: "change your behaviour... change your behaviour".
He said in Uganda condoms were never a consideration because the country's entire campaign was focused on abstinence, which the South African government said was part of its campaign while still distributing condoms.
Napier said 10% of people living in South Africa were Catholics and the church was actively involved in home-based care and the administering of antiretrovirals with the help of government.
Abstinence
"There's no medical evidence to prove that condoms prevent the transmission of Aids and it's only 70-75% effective in preventing pregnancy," said Napier.
He believed that women were the most vulnerable when it came to HIV/Aids because there "are so many chaps who go from one person to another spreading the disease".
"Government speaks about moral regeneration but it does not think how the promotion of condoms affects human behaviour."
He said the church would never promote condoms because it was against birth control and pre-marital sex.
However, where one partner in a marriage had Aids and the other did not it would be up to that couple to decide whether or not to use condoms or to abstain from sex.
Napier said he did not have first-hand knowledge to comment on reports that the Catholic Church in Spain had last week agreed to work with that country's government and support the use of condoms in the fight against Aids.
A similar statement followed from the Catholic Church in the UK, but the Spanish church then apparently changed its stance again following a rebuke from the Vatican.
- SAPA