HIV Positive Pregnant Women Discovered At Screening As Kano Prepares To Marry Off 1000 In Mass Wedding

The Hisbah Board in Kano state which started screening couples ahead of the third round of the Kano mass wedding yesterday, discovered that about eight persons among the prospective couples have so far tested positive to HIV, while some women who came to seek spouses were found to be pregnant.

The Assistant Commandant General, Women wing of Hisbah, Zahra’u Muhammd disclosed that anyone who is found to be HIV positive or pregnant would not be a beneficiary of this mass wedding programme.

“We cannot go ahead with marriage arrangement for HIV carriers, we are not advocating for spread of the virus. What we normally do in this case is to advise the woman or the man to wait patiently until we get partners for them who are HIV carriers too. During the second batch of the mass wedding, we married off a man and woman who are HIV carriers and they are now blessed with a child,” she said.

She also added that the board will replace the HIV carriers and pregnant women with applicants on stand by. “You know we have more than 1,000 women who applied for the marriage, so we will replace those HIV carriers and pregnant women with those stand by women who are ready to get married at anytime. We will marry off 1000 women on Sunday insha Allah,” she said.