Kampala — Makerere University guild president Susan Abbo has said the use of condoms does not prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS. She, therefore, emphasises abstinence and faithfulness as the most effective tools to curb the pandemic.

Abbo was addressing students of Kimaanya Blessed Sacrament School in Masaka.

She said the nation was likely to lose the young generation because of the pro-condom campaign. She added that it was not easy to be consistent on using condoms and that condoms are not 100% effective.

While her efforts to sensitise the youth against the pandemic are commendable it is not right for her or anybody else to decampaign a scientific method that has been proven to be significantly effective against infection. It is true condoms may not be perfect, but then no other method is perfect either. HIV is not transmitted through sex alone.

People have been infected through getting in contact with the blood of an infected person. For example this can happen in a fight or in an accident. There is also the problem of discordant couples which had hitherto not been given much attention. Should married people living in a discordant relationship abstain from sex and for how long? The Abstain, Be faithful, use Condom (ABC) strategy worked very well in the 1990s and was largely responsible for bringing down the high rate of infection from 16% to the present 6% prevalence.

It was successful because people focused on what worked and promoted it. Today, there is infighting by promoters of different methods probably because AIDS has, unfortunately, become a lucrative business. The campaigners focus on what the donors want to promote. The ABC strategy recognises that people cannot behave in the same way and the success of Uganda in the past was not because of one method. The politics of one side attacking another is wrong and counter-productive.

AIDS must be seen as a public health issue rather than a moral one.