Health Ministry invokes Ministry of Religious Affairs to combat AIDS

Minister of Religious Affairs and Wakfs, Buabdellah Ghoulamallah, launched a campaign to fight the spread of AIDS, and instructed the Imams and Religious female Guides to assume their responsibilities, by providing advice and guidance, and start community awareness for the need to immunize themselves from this killer disease, by following what is provided by the teachings of our religion.

Ghoulamallah sought in a study day that was organized on Monday at the Ministry of Religious Affairs, House of Imam in Algiers, to spread awareness of the spread of AIDS, especially among youth, and to urge the Imams who came from different Wilayas to the role that they can do to help the Ministry of Health in the fight against the spread of the disease.

“Imam’s task is not only talking in matters of jurisprudence and legislation, and the mosque is the property of the society, which imposes on the Imam to engage in important matters, which means individuals”;

The minister avoids mentioning AIDS by name, and only referred to it as a fatal disease. He called upon Imams and female guides to give importance to certain social roles of mosques, including humanitarian aid and combating literacy, and pay attention to the poor citizens, and orders them to go out of the mosques and search for the interests of individuals.

“Contributing in the fight against AIDS falls within the duty to protect the others, as set forth in the teachings of Islam religion, combatting AIDS is realized by installing faith, because health is a blessing, and should be maintained. Imams have part of the responsibility because some individuals kept away from religion, and they are required to get closer to the people and see their problems, and help them strengthen the worship and uniformity, which Ghoulamallah considered the best prevention from AIDS disease which spread recently in a striking way”, said the representative of the Ministry of Health, Dr. Samia Amrani, which was the spokesman of the Health Minister Abdelmalek Boudiaf, during the school day.

“Number of cases of people with AIDS reached 1443 cases. The seriousness of this disease is that its symptoms remain hidden for years, and during this phase infection occurs and cases double, while the number of HIV-positive reached 6603 case, bringing the total number of people living with AIDS to 8640 people. These data prompted the Ministry of Health to ask help and coordination from the Ministry of Religious Affairs, in order to reduce the spread of the disease. Imams should help us to combat this killer disease. Prevention can reduce the spread of the disease from mother to child by 2%, a role that should be handled by the female guides, by urging mothers and women to get closer to the competent authorities for the detection of AIDS”.