Catholic Church attacks Zambian anti-AIDS campaign

The Roman Catholic Church in Zambia has attacked a government-funded safe sex advertising campaign aimed at curbing HIV and AIDS.

The Church's secretariat said the campaign was offensive and in bad taste, encouraging promiscuity and moral decay. It said the adverts suggested to young people that sex was something nice to have if it was done with a condom.

The Zambian Health Minister, Enock Kavindele, said the hard-hitting campaign might be offensive but that the government was dealing with a grave situation which needed shock therapy.

He said he'd told religious leaders that they faced preaching to empty churches if the AIDS crisis wasn't dealt with firmly.

One-in-five Zambians is infected with HIV, and the country has more than half-a-million AIDS orphans -- a figure set to double in the next fourteen years.

From the newsroom of the BBC World Service