IPOH, Malaysia, June 26, 2005 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – The Malaysian government will make a final decision on the implementation of a controversial anti- HIV program after a ruling from the country's National Fatwa Council, reported Bernama news agency.
"The National Fatwa Council is studying (the program) according to Islamic jurisprudence...give the National Fatwa Council a chance to come up with an official fatwa," Deputy Premier Najib Tun Razak told the annual general assembly of the National Association Against Drug Abuse (Pemadam) Saturday, June 25.
Facing a threat of a possible epidemic, Malaysia is mulling the implementation of a pioneer program to give needles, condoms and methadone substitution drugs to addicts in a move to reduce the spread of HIV/AIDS.
The government had earlier decided to implement the pioneer program of the Health Ministry beginning October this year because it considered the HIV/AIDS scourge in this country had reached the "emergency" level.
However, the program was disputed by various quarters especially religious leaders and Pemadam who feared that giving the methadone would not help efforts at eliminating drug addiction.
This prompted the government to seek a ruling from the National Fatwa Council on the program compatibility with Islamic Shari`ah.
Critical Stage
The problem of HIV infection in the country had now become a serious threat and had reached a critical stage which could lead to an emergency situation because the spread was going on an upward trend, Najib said.
"The Malaysian graph is rising whereas countries such as Australia, whose population equals that of Malaysia, is registering a decline...now 64,000 Malaysians are infected with HIV, if this trend continues in the next two or three years, between 200,000 and 300,000 people may be infected."
He stressed that the treatment using methadone, for example, was found to be successful in other countries including Muslim nations such as Iran which had succeeded in curbing the spread of the HIV/AIDS virus.
Such an approach, the deputy premier said, had been recommended by the United Nations as a new method in addressing the problems of drug addiction and HIV virus.
Najib said he had been told by a medical practitioner that this approach had a success rate of 80 percent in rehabilitating addicts whereas the success rate of the Drug Rehabilitation Centers was only between 10 and 15 percent.
The World Health Organization has recently warned that Malaysia is at the initial stage of a HIV break out.
Everyone's Fight
Meanwhile, Malaysian AIDS Council (MAC) president Marina Mahathir said a multi-sectoral approach is needed to fight the disease with the rising numbers of cases, the Malay Mail reported on Saturday.
“Malaysia would not be on the brink of a HIV/AIDS epidemic if we had paid more attention to the early warning signs. Instead, a reluctance to confront the problem,” she said.
The former prime minister's daughter said the WHO's warning is not the first from the world body which had issued a similar caution a few years ago.
Its recent fear, however, was prompted by findings that 15,000 children in Malaysia had been orphaned by AIDS.
Sixteen years after HIV was first detected in Malaysia, the situation domestically has seen little improvement.
Official figures state that about 65,000 people have been diagnosed with HIV/AIDS. Of this, 9,444 have AIDS and 7,195 have since died.
“Obviously, the rising numbers indicate that the government has not done enough,” Marina said.
She added that the public’s lack of understanding about HIV/AIDS was also responsible for many misconceptions about the disease.
Marina, however, fears that the WHO warning might result in an adverse reaction from the people.
“My greatest fear is that people will panic and demand the wrong sort of programs, such as isolation of people living with HIV/AIDS.
“We need people to be calm and approach the situation based on scientific evidence of what works and what doesn’t.”
She underlined that Malaysia needs to “adapt proven prevention programs to our circumstances”.
Marina pointed out that during MAC’s nationwide training of Muslim religious leaders, it was found that at the grass root level, the leaders yearned for more knowledge on HIV/AIDS.
“These leaders are faced with the issue but without proper knowledge, they do not know how to help and feel helpless. They were happy when we conducted the workshops and asked for more.”