HIV-positive religious leaders tackle stigma

HIV-positive African religious leaders this week mooted public disclosure of their condition as an effective means of tackling AIDS-related stigma.

Anglican vicar Jape Heath told at a gathering of clergymen from various denominations in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, that the association of sin with HIV infection discouraged people from establishing their status.

Kenya's Daily Nation newspaper quoted Heath as saying: "HIV is a virus; it's not a moral condition ... where vision has been articulated by religious leaders, too much of it, and for too long, has been a vision of judgement and damnation; of punishment and persecution."

Heath is one of the few priests to have openly declared that he is HIV positive. Gideon Byamugisha, an Anglican priest from Uganda, was the first to do so more than five years ago.