AIDS victims are martyrs: Egypt Muslim authority

Arab world has second highest HIV infection rate

The head of the Religious Guidance Department at Egypt's Ministry of Religious Endowments ruled that death by AIDS is considered martyrdom, press reports said. Sheikh Ahmed Abu-Youssef referred to the Prophet's (PBUH) saying that: "He who dies of intestinal disease is a martyr" and pointed out that 90% of the patients "sincerely repent" before they die.
Of the 2,086 documented HIV cases since 1986, only 960 patients are still alive,
DR. Mamdouh Wahba, the Deputy Chairman of the Department for Combating Contagious Diseases at the Egyptian Ministry of Health told Egyptian daily Al-Masri Al-Youm.
Wahba said the WHO report about HIV in Egypt triggered concern,
since it said that for each reported case, 10 go unreported.Many people who suspect they are infected refuse to take the necessary medical tests, Al-Azhar University's reproductive health professor
Dr. Ahmed Ragaei said.Ragaei added that although the number of people infected in the Arab region is one of the lowest in the world, the rate that HIV infections are spreading ranks second.