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Uganda: World Body Fights HIV/Aids Stigma
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The Monitor (Kampala)
3 May 2008
Posted to the web 5 May 2008
Joseph Mazige
Jinja
It is the kind of trouble the agents of the Jinja Network for People Living with HIV/Aids could do without, considering that battling stigma presents a big enough challenge already.
"We have been conned and exploited many times.
We have written a number of proposals, with good ideas but whenever we presented them for funding and other assistance, they are stolen," Mr Fredrick Maganda the chairperson of Jinja Network for People Living with HIV/Aids told Saturday Monitor in a recent interview.
Nonetheless, Mr Maganda is grateful for the support from the International HIV/Aids Alliance (Ihaa), a global charity organisation that has identified 27 districts in Uganda to facilitate a three-year programme called Community Action Against the HIV/Aids Scourge.
Ihaa is expanding the role of networks of people living with HIV by training them to become network support agents. Ihaa has come up with a new approach that will see HIV/Aids patients involved directly through their networks for the improvement of service delivery.
The network supports agencies which help people living with HIV/Aids to easily identify with one another to reduce the stigma they suffer.
Mr Asaph Ivan Byamukama, the Ihaa financial and grants manager said many different service providers were not known to the people but this initiative will link them together to enable support organisations increase utilization of services.
"There is evidence that stigma is reduced when people living with the disease come together," Mr Byamukama said.
He said building capacity of groups for people living with the disease in sensitisation, counseling and coordination, is very important at this stage in the fight against the pandemic.
"Aids should be looked at like any other disease since we are bringing it under control," he said. Ihaa, funded by Usaid, has provided nine motorcycles, 37 bicycles and over Shs40million to nine networks in Jinja and Iganga District for the co-ordination of their work.
Mr Byamukama said the major challenge the local communities face is the failure by the Ministry of Health to have anti-retroviral treatment at lower health units in the country.
"We have a memorandum of understanding with the Ministry of Health but we also want ARVs to be distributed beyond Health Centre IV at county level to reduce the distance that patients walk in search for treatment," he said.
He said another challenge was lack of community resources to allow the patients get services and the community leadership insufficient action about the HIV/Aids response.
Ms Madina Kagoya, one of the HIV/Aids patients, said: "Coming out of the open to tell the public that I was HIV positive was one of my worst experience. But a counselor advised me that it was my life and I needed to live on and go for the ARVs."
She said she is affected by the long distance she travels from Mawoito in Buwenge Sub-county to access the drugs.
"It is us the people living positively who should stop the spread of the disease," she told Saturday Monitor.
Ms Kagoya said the public is no longer hostile to HIV/Aids patients as before.
She said the ARVs are available in Health Centres 3 but the biggest challenge is distance as it requires the patients to collect them.
Jinja District Health Officer Sarah Byakika said due to weak networks of people living positively with HIV/Aids, drugs, mainly for children, are expiring at health centres in the district.
"Very few parents or guardians take children for testing and most of the ARVs for children end up expiring at our centres," she said.
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Although the the health boss could not quantify the amount of the drugs that expire in monetary terms, she said HIV/Aids NGOs and networks should play the role of disseminating the information. "It is you the networks and our office to ensure that we tell the public where to find HIV/Aids services," she said.
She said they have received reports that whenever one partner tests positive, families have broken down as a result.
She blamed this to lack of sensitisation within the communities.
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