Report concludes Muslim countries masking AIDS problem
Submitted on July 12, 2005 - 12:00am.
Adrien M. Martin - Summer 2005
WASHINGTON – Mary Kay Smith travels to Zambia each year to teach Methodist pastors how to combat HIV in their own communities and how the virus spreads. She urges the pastors not only to teach abstinence of the Christian Bible but also to be realistic.
Smith, a psychiatry professor at the Medical University of Ohio at Toledo, said the process has been slow since she started going to the sub-Saharan country four years ago. The pastors are beginning to see that religion alone cannot guard against the virus that has come to blanket their continent.
“The were hanging on to old tribal traditions, thinking evil spirits caused the virus,” Smith said. They had no other reasoning to put in its place. They couldn't figure out why it was still spreading.”
Smith, a psychiatry professor at the Medical University of Ohio at Toledo, said the process has been slow since she started going to the sub-Saharan country four years ago. The pastors are beginning to see that religion alone cannot guard against the virus that has come to blanket their continent.
“The were hanging on to old tribal traditions, thinking evil spirits caused the virus,” Smith said. They had no other reasoning to put in its place. They couldn't figure out why it was still spreading.”
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