Zambia's health minister, Enoch Kavindele, has warned local clergymen that, if the spread of AIDS in his country is not halted soon, "the prospects of pastors preaching to empty churches are very high."

Kavindele's warning is directed at church leaders who won a bitter fight this week against government television advertisements promoting the use of condoms to fight the spread of HIV infection.

According to a recent report compiled by the Resident Doctors Association of Zambia (RDAZ), at least 1 million of Zambia's population of 9 million citizens are infected with HIV. Most of those affected are aged between 15 and 49.

Church leaders interviewed by ENI said that the advertisements, some of which feature school students talking about the use of condoms, were in fact contributing to the spread of the disease by endorsing casual sex.

Ignatius Mwebe, a priest and spokesman for the Roman Catholic Church, said: "The advertisements are justifying casual sex using a condom, [suggesting] that you can have sex anyhow so long as you have a condom.

"The people being used in the advertisements are so young that they should not have anything to do with sex at their age," Mwebe said.

He added that it would be helpful if the advertisements simply gave factual information about the dangers of AIDS.

The Christian Council of Zambia (CCZ) said in a statement that the advertisements had "moved from AIDS prevention, which can only be achieved through abstinence, to allowing people to have sex anyhow. This is basically business for those selling condoms."

Joshua Banda, a pastor and vice-national superintendent of the Pentecostal churches in Zambia, told ENI: "The advertisements are promoting the wrong moral values." The emphasis in the advertisements ...