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Abstinence, faithfulness programmes not effective

I must apologise this is now two weeks in a row that I have failed to deliver original content for readers. This is not out of want of trying but sometimes I get overwhelmed with life (to put it simply).
I promise and now it is in writing that next week’s column will be about a local project HIV audiobooks that are providing important HIV education messages to the hearing impaired.
But as for this week, I stumbled on a story that resonated with me. An article on avert.org reported that nearly $1.3 billion has been spent on the promotion of abstinence and faithfulness programmes by the US President’s Emergency Plan for Aids Relief (Pepfar) in sub-Saharan Africa, with no significant impact on sexual behaviour or reduction in HIV incidence.
These disappointing results came from an analysis of sexual health data from 14 different countries where Pepfar programmes are implemented, and were presented at a Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections in February 2015.
A research team from Stanford University School of Medicines measured the impact Pepfar programmes focusing on abstinence and faithfulness by comparing trends in sexual behaviour derived from national demographics and health surveys in 22 countries in sub-Saharan Africa. Unfortunately, I was unable to identify whether Malawi was one of the 22 countries but I suspect it was analysed.
Researchers compared trends in the number of sexual partners for both men and women, the age of first sex for both men and women, and teenage pregnancy among 14 Pepfar programme countries and eight non-Pepfar funded countries.
By looking at trends in behaviour prior to the introduction of Pepfar funding and after Pepfar funding, researchers were able to analyse whether year-on-year changes were out of the ordinary, and whether shifts in behaviour either followed the long-term trend or deviated from it. The researchers found no significant change in the number of sexual partners for both men and women, the age of first sex for both men and women and the proportion of teenage pregnancies.
Funding abstinence and faithfulness programmes were believed to reduce the number of sexual partners and delay sexual debut, thus having a substantial impact on the HIV epidemic. Pepfar, therefore, earmarked one-third of its funding to be spent on programmes promoting abstinence from sexual relations, delaying sexual activity and faithfulness to one partner in 2004. The current evaluation of the effectiveness of these programmes implies that the funding of these programmes was not effective.
So, in other words, those millions of dollars could have spent on C of ABC – condomise! So, is there a message in here for churches and religious institutions who promote abstinence?

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