By Sola Ojewusi and Babatunde Odubanwo

The World Health Organization, WHO, has affirmed the relevance of faith-based organizations like TB Joshua’s Synagogue Church of All Nations, SCOAN, to the battle against Covid-19.

It would be recalled that a few days ago, The Lagosian reported the story of a Cameroonian Medical Doctor, Dr. Pierre Kameni who testified to being instantly healed of coronavirus during an interactive prayer session on TB Joshua’s Emmanuel TV. During an interactive press briefing organized yesterday, Wednesday, by the World Health Organisation, the issue came up and it was the subject of a telephone chat between Simon Ateba, renowned journalist with Washington DC’s Today’s News Africa and the panel of top WHO officials.

Mr. Ateba, described as a friend of WHO by the programme’s compere, had called in to seek the view of WHO about the contributions of organisations like SCOAN to the battle against the pandemic. He specifically mentioned the healing of Cameroonian Dr. Kameni during the Emmanuel TV prayer session and the ensuing testimony of the medical doctor. He then asked how WHO officials viewed such cogent roles by religious bodies like SCOAN. Hear him: “Thank you for taking my question. My name is Simon Ateba from Today’s News Africa from Washington D.C. As the number of cases in Africa continues to increase, we have 400,000 people who have been infected so far, and over 10,000 fatalities have been recorded. We are beginning to see many people claiming that they have a way of curing the disease. For instance, on Monday, a very popular pastor in Nigeria, T.B Joshua, released a video of a medical doctor in Cameroun who was said to have been cured of the virus through prayer. I was wondering, in the context of infodemics, how does WHO react to this influx of information coming from pastors and from people who are not in the medical field? Thank you.”

In response, Mike Ryan, the WHO panelist who spoke on behalf of the international healthcare organization affirmed the readiness of WHO to recognize and collaborate with bodies like SCOAN to advance the cause of the war against the deadly virus. He specifically saw the intervention of faith-based organizations like TB Joshua’s SCOAN as desirable in all its ramifications.

Here’s the crux of Mike Ryan’s response: “Certainly spiritual leadership is very important in times like this in the communities… Therefore we respect and work very closely with faith-based organisations on the huge contributions they are and can make to managing anxiety at community levels, providing direct support to communities dealing with this disease, dealing with bereaved families and individuals. So, the role played by faith-based organizations is very important. They also play a very important role in getting information to people. We find the faith-based organizations as very effective ways of passing good information because faith-based organizations are trusted by the communities. So we are working very closely with those organizations around the world. In fact this week at the WHO Infodemiology Conference we have more than 10000 connections. So you can see that there’s a massive commitment to the positive management of information on this pandemic…So faith-based organizations are a very important part of this response.”

At this juncture, WHO Director General himself, Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus came in. He says, “I will like to add something to this. During the HIV/AIDS era, at its peak, we had similar situation like we are facing today where people were forced to choose between medicine and faith. I remember we discussed with religious leaders and religious leaders going to their followers saying the two can go together. Have your faith, continue to take your medicine. That’s what we advised and that really solved the situation. As Mike said, we know many religious leader who would really advice their followers to follow their faith and at the same time use science. The two do not contradict; they go together. And that is our advice. We will call on all religious leaders to be in this fight and save lives.”

Against the backdrop of the controversy surrounding the role of spiritual leaders in the battle against the pandemic, this intervention by the World Health Organization will go a long way in putting the relevance of organizations like TB Joshua’s SCOAN in the battle against the deadly disease in proper perspective.

PLEASE FIND THE LINK TO THE WHO VIDEO BELOW: