Nigeria's Anglican Church Imposes HIV Test before Marriage
The Anglican Church in Nigeria has imposed a nationwide condition that couples take an HIV test before they are married by the church.
HIV tests are required to help couples make more "informed choices" when choosing marriage partners, said the Rev. Akintunde Popoola,,a spokesman for the Anglican Church in Nigeria.
"The aim is to help intending couples to make informed decisions because we don't want anyone to be kept in the dark about their partner," he said, according to the BBC News website Friday.
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"The whole point is for the couples to know their HIV status before getting married."
Yet the church is careful to point out that it is up to the couple whether to marry in cases where one of the partners has the HIV virus. Popoola said the church will offer the couple care and support if they decide to tie the knot despite the infection of one of partners.
Nigeria has one of the world's highest number of people infected with HIV – trailing only India and South Africa. An estimated 2.9 million people in the country with a population of 135 million are living with the virus in 2005, according to the latest UNAIDS report. Moreover, some 300,000 adults were newly infected with HIV in 2005.
Other non-Anglican churches in Nigeria have imposed similar tests on parishioners who want to marry, noted BBC.
Western Christian leaders have also urged people to take HIV test and for the church as a whole to become more involved in the HIV/AIDS battle.
Prominent pastors such as Rick Warren and Bill Hybels are spearheading church initiatives to help equip and network local churches in hard-hit areas such as in Africa and South Asia to better respond and care for HIV-infected people.
At the annual Global Summit on AIDS and the Church hosted by Saddleback Church, Warren along with presidential candidates Sens. Sam Brownback (R- Kan.) and Barack Obama (D-Ill.) all took the AIDS test to encourage the practice.
In Nigeria, not everyone supports the Anglican Church's mandatory HIV testing before marriage policy, however.
"We cannot accept what the church is proposing. Every Nigerian must be allowed to decide on their own whether they want to be tested or not," said Professor Tunde Oshotimehin, who heads Nigeria's state HIV control agency, according to BBC.
"HIV testing and counseling must be voluntary. What the church is trying to do will encourage denial."
The Catholic Church in Nigeria is an example of those who are not imposing such policy, explaining that it wants HIV testing to be voluntary and personal.
"We know that some people do it, but we are not making it church policy," said the Rev. Fr. Ralph Madu, Catholic Archdiocese of Abuja, according to BBC.
Nigeria is a deeply religious country with the population nearly evenly divided between Muslims in the North and Christians in the South. The church in Nigeria is said to be one of the fastest growing in the whole world.
Worldwide, there were an estimated 39.5 million people living with HIV in 2006 with 4.3 million people being newly infected with the HIV virus that same year, according to the 2006 UNAIDS report. Meanwhile, some 2.9 million people died of AIDS in 2006.
Two-thirds (63 percent) of all adults and children with HIV globally live in sub-Saharan Africa, while about one-third (32 percent) of all people with HIV globally live in southern Africa in 2006.
