NEWS: AIDS body wants testing for all

AIDS body wants testing for all

Sunday, 28th June, 2009 from NEW VISION

THE AIDS Information Centre has launched a sh100b plan to ensure quality counselling and testing for HIV/AIDS is available to all in the next five years. “Our wish is that everyone in Uganda undergoes HIV testing. We want a situation where everyone knows his or her status for us to be able to fight the disease,” the chairperson, MP Chris Baryomunsi, said on Friday. At the moment, only 21% of Ugandan adults, or 2.5 million, know their HIV status. About one million people in Uganda are infected with the disease, according to statistics by the AIDS Information Centre, while 1.2 million children have been orphaned by AIDS. In what is considered the third phase of the epidemic in Uganda, prevalence rates have stabilised at between 6% and 7%, up from 5% a few years ago. Launching the plan at Imperial Royale Hotel, Kampala, the Minister of Local Government, Adolf Mwesige, expressed concern over the increase in new infections among married couples. A study conducted earlier this year by Makerere University on behalf of the Uganda AIDS Commission and UNAIDS said about 650,000 Ugandans are unknowingly living with an HIV-positive partner and almost 85,000 will contract the virus this year if nothing is done to increase awareness. Mwesige called upon Ugandans to embrace voluntary counselling and testing, and appealed to the donors to support the plan, which will be financed by the Government and development partners. He also appealed to the organisation to make sure funds provided by foreign tax-payers reach the beneficiaries, adding that the misappropriation of the Global Fund money was still fresh in the minds of people. Formed in 1990, the AIDS Information Centre was the first centre to provide the public with voluntary and anonymous HIV counselling and testing. The organisation, based in Mengo-Kisenyi, Kampala, has eight branches in 41 districts. The history of AIDS in Uganda is generally divided into three phases. The first stage saw the rapid spread of HIV through urban sexual networks and along major highways from its origin in the Lake Victoria region. Doctors in this area had become aware of a surge in cases of severe wasting known locally as ‘slim disease’. In 1982, the first AIDS case in Uganda was diagnosed and the link between ‘slim’ and AIDS was clinically recognised. It was not until 1986, when the Ugandan civil war ended and President Yoweri Museveni came to power, that the country had a major HIV prevention programme. By this time, the country was in the midst of a major epidemic, with prevalence rates of up to 29% in urban areas. The programme promoted the ABC approach: abstain, be faithful and use condoms, and ensured the safety of the blood supply. Strong political leadership and commitment to tackling the rampaging epidemic, as well as prevention work at grass-root level, were key elements in the early response to AIDS. The second phase of the epidemic ran from 1992 to 2000. During this period, HIV prevalence fell dramatically, from a peak in 1991 of around 15% among adults, and over 30% among pregnant women in the cities, to around 5% in 2001. It is believed that the Government’s ABC prevention campaign was partly responsible for the decline. However, as treatment was not widely available, the high numbers of AIDS-related deaths also contributed to the reduction in the number of people living with HIV. The third phase has seen the stabilisation of prevalence during 2000-2005, and reports of a slight increase in prevalence from 2006. It is thought that the availability of free antiretroviral drugs may have led to complacency as AIDS is no longer an immediate death sentence. Many experts have also speculated that Uganda’s shift in prevention policy away from ABC towards US-backed ‘abstinence-only’ programmes may also be responsible for the increase.