HIV versus Theology

Having recently spent time with many HIV-positive patients, I was interested to watch Stephen Fry's HIV and Me. Did you know it's been estimated that 63,500 people in the UK are HIV-positive, yet around one third of these don't realise? That's rather frightening. Surely in this day and age, HIV should be preventable?

I'm currently working on an assignment concerning young people and sexual behaviour when on holiday, and the statistics make you want to bang their heads together!

• Annually, over 1.5million new episodes of STIs (including HIV) are diagnosed within the UK. This is a 15% increase from 2001.
• Between 2000-2002, 69% of heterosexual men acquired HIV whilst abroad.
• In one study of medical students, it was found that less than half who had engaged in sexual activity with a casual partner(s) whilst on holiday had used protection.
• Chlamydia is increasingly on the up, particularly among females under 20.

The sexual health of adolescents in the UK is very poor due to risky sexual behaviour, but why is this? It seems there is a certain amount of apathy when it comes to STIs and many of the patients we have seen haven't learnt from previous infections - they come back to the clinic time and time again.

I met with an HIV Specialist Nurse last week who told me that one of her major problems when working with HIV-positive patients in the community was African pastors. HIV-positive patients have to maintain a strict routine with anti-HIV treatment. Non-compliance will cause the virus to become immune to the specific drug. I live in an area with a reasonably high African population, and so there are many African churches around. The HIV Specialist Nurse has found many of these pastors tell their congregations not to take anti-HIV treatment because God will heal them instead.

This is dangerous ground, and dangerous theology too. Could the pastor be held to account by the law if/when members of his congregation contract an AIDs-defining illness due to a lack of medication?

I believe God can heal. I believe He is a good God who loves to bless His people. So should all HIV-positive people forgo medication and await God's "zapping" powers to restore them to full health? There are several issues with this:

• Firstly, it is impossible to know if you're cured of HIV. There are no tests to indicate this. It is possible to have an undetectable viral load, meaning the person is well and the level of HIV in the blood is low. But it would be impossible to know if the person had been healed.
• Secondly, we are very fortunate in this country to have a selection of anti-HIV treatment - many countries do not have these. So should we see the advance of medical science as a positive, God-endorsed thing and encourage their use?
• Does the taking of anti-HIV medication suggest a lack of faith in God?

Ultimately, it's down to the individual. Either way, us nurses are to respect and support patients in their decisions without judgement or intimidation, but with compassion and empathy.