ADDIS ABABA (Reuters) – Over a quarter of Ethiopia’s HIV/AIDS patients on drugs are not taking their medicine because of logistical problems but also due to religious beliefs, the head of a treatment body said on Tuesday.

Over 40,000 of Ethiopia’s 156,360 HIV/AIDS patients on the life-prolonging medication have discontinued treatment “due to problems of transportation to hospitals,” said Dr Ygeremu Abebe, the director of the Clinton Foundation in Ethiopia.

Some however stopped taking the anti-retroviral medicine on the prompting of religious leaders who encouraged them to take “holy water” instead, he said.

“Lack of awareness of serious health problem for patients who discontinue treatment could also be considered a reason,” Ygeremu told a workshop on the disease.

Some 20 percent of 7,000 children with the illness have also stopped medication, he said.

Last year, the head of Ethiopia’s Orthodox Church told about 5,000 faithful, most of who were infected, that they should combine the free drugs — provided under U.S. President George W. Bush’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief — with the holy water.

With more than 1.7 million people living with HIV/AIDS, Ethiopia is one of the countries in the world most affected by the epidemic, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).

Over a million adults and children have died in Ethiopia in the last two decades from AIDS.

Infections in the country are predominantly in urban areas but have in the last several years spread to rural centers all over the country, where 85 percent of Ethiopia’s 81 million people live, according to WHO.

(Reporting by Tsegaye Tadesse; Editing by Richard Balmforth)