"The HIV prevalence rate in the country requires serious attention from different stakeholders, more especially the faith community. Unprotected heterosexual contact accounts for 88 percent of new infections in Malawi and among them are religious married people.

 "We have therefore realized the need to strengthen capacity of religious leaders to promote sexual faithfulness and family values among the married people they serve because this is a crucial intervention in the reduction of HIV transmission," said Ngaiyaye in an interview with Nyasa Times. Consequently, the religious based group has developed a National Action Plan on Mutual Faithfulness to provide a broad based framework for the implementation of the act as one of the key HIV prevention interventions in Malawi for the period of 2008 to 2012. According to Ngaiyaye, despite recognition of mutual faithfulness as one of the crucial interventions in reducing HIV transmission in the country, there has been lack of a comprehensive strategy to guide as well as direct the behaviour and partner reduction interventions at national, district and community levels. Among other things, the action plan has identified guiding principles that will create a conducive environment for the attainment of the objectives, and apart from married people, the action plan also primarily targets bachelors, spinsters and young people. "Though we have a deliberate effort to focus on married people, the strategies recognize the need to prepare bachelors, spinsters and young people in mutual faithfulness before they get married," he said, while urging the faith community to be exemplary as regards their behaviour. "Much as we appreciate the context of monogamy and polygamy according to the teachings of the Holy Quran and Bible respectively, there are many religious leaders that are promoting the spread of HIV as they are having extra sexual partners apart from their matrimonial spouses." MIAA further identifies mutual faithfulness as the B component of the Abstinence, Be Faithful, Condom use (ABC) approach of HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases means practicing fidelity in marriage or entering and remaining in an exclusive sexual relationship. "It can be in monogamy or within a polygamous union, but in HIV prevention, the fewer lifetime sexual partners, the lower the risk of contracting or spreading the virus." Meanwhile, the interfaith association has strongly expressed that it does not support the general use of condoms, which Malawi government, NGOs and other groups are promoting across the country. "As a faith institution, we believe in the promotion of abstinence and being faithful to the extent that a need to use condoms doesn't arise. If there is somebody that wants to use a condom let them do that but they will never get it from us [faith based organizations]. "The only time we would probably promote use of condoms is when there is discrepancy [where one partner is HIV positive and the other one is negative], declared Ngaiyaye. The use of condoms in Malawi has been a bone of contention among stakeholders in the country more especially the faith community, arguing it promotes acts of ungodly [sexual] behaviour among unmarried people, which they say has also escalated the spread of HIV. Malawi's HIV and AIDS prevalence rate is currently at 12 percent and globally, the country is ranked on position nine among the countries most hit by the pandemic