Juliet Waiswa
12 April 2009
Kampala — EXCITEMENT gripped Luweero town residents when officials from Strengthening HIV Counselling Training (SCOT), a local NGO, staged puppet show. The residents referred to the show as Ddikuula.
But, this was not the usual Ddikuula, the clown. These puppets were used to deliver the message of HIV/AIDS prevention, while providing entertainment.
The 40-minute messages were precise and ended with the audience asking HIV/AIDS-related questions.
Due to the increasing number of new HIV infections, there is fear that Uganda could be losing the battle to the epidemic.
Though the epidemic has evolved significantly, prevention messages and target groups of the 1990s have not changed at the same pace.
The number of new cases has continued to grow, meaning the current prevention strategies are not in harmony with the transmission dynamics.
Uganda's efforts paid off and the prevalence dropped considerably, from 18% between 1989 and 1992, declining sharply to 6.5% at the end of 2002.
Despite all the interventions, the prevelance has since stagnated while sexually transmitted infections (STI), especially among young people, remain high.
According to UNAIDS estimates, 40% of the new STI infections in 2006 occurred in young people.
The overall HIV adult prevalence has stagnated between 6.0% to 6.5% according to figures from both antenatal clinics and sero behaviour surveillance.
Some people have expressed pessimism that Uganda might be losing grip on the changing face of HIV.
In 2007, the Uganda AIDS Commission re-launched assertive messages to rekindle the struggle which called for new strategies of passing on information to the people.
It is against this background that SCOT felt Uganda needed change in her HIV prevention strategies, thus the shows.
"The current HIV/AIDS prevention messages are considered tired and old by the people. We feel HIV/AIDS should be fought at another level with new strategies," says Moses Miiro, the SCOT coordinator.
Miiro said there was need to support the existing campaign in order to save the lives. SCOT is using puppets to fight the epidemic and currently moves to different districts introducing the new prevention strategy.
First it was the drums which faded with time. This was followed by the ABC strategy which also faded gradually, leaving communicators with few choices to turn to.
As part of its strategies to revitalise its community education services, SCOT is also using positive prevention, to pass on the HIV/AIDS messages.
Positive prevention is a programme that puts individuals living with HIV/AIDs at the forefront of reducing transmission of HIV/STIs. The strategy focuses on HIV-positive individuals to prevent new infections while maintaining their wellbeing.
By using puppets, SCOT felt it would pass on the message while avoiding the risk of attaching individuals to the role they act.
"Usually when a person acts a role in drama, they end up being stigmatised," Miiro said. "Effective HIV/STI prevention is in two ways - people who are HIV-negative have to take measures to stay negative and HIV positive people need to avoid reinfection and transmitting the virus to others," Miiro stressed.
SCOT recently carried out campaigns in Mbarara, Masaka, Jinja, and Luweero and Wakiso districts with their new strategy.
Miiro says in the past, the strategies targeted HIV-negative clients, ensuring that they remained negative, leaving out the positive clients. He added that even the HIV-positive should be encouraged to live positively.
He says their messages are aimed at creating awareness among the communities to ensure those infected take their medicine, and avoid reinfection and infecting others by using condoms. They also encourage people to declare their status.
Puppets were used in Luweero with messages focused on drug adherance and avoiding stigmatisation.
Miiro says the reason HIV prevalence rates have stagnated is because the messages are obsolete, with only traditional methods like posters and banners being used, yet our community has poor education levels and a poor reading culture.
Miiro says the puppets come in as a new tool to package the HIV messages in a more attractive way.
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Not surprised, with Uganda being the new destination for sex tourism, shame on Uganda and Uganda's government :{
Let us get this story straight, HIV/AIDS has no known cure at the moment.
The viable aim for HIV/AIDS PEPFAR program in Sub-Saharan Africa is to accomplish two things: (a) elongate the lives of the people inflicted with HIV (b) provide the HIV/AIDS researchers with a fertile ground to conduct tests using those poor African human subjects affected with the virus and those HIV-free candidates knowingly/unknowingly risking their lives by participating in these international sponsored clinical trials.
PEPFAR HIV/AIDS drug cocktails prolong the lives of those taking them. What the drugs do not do is preventing the afflicted person whose life is being prolonged from spreading the HIV to some unsuspecting un-affected population. This factor is inevitable because many infected people will not admit they are carrying HIV virus in their blood, leave alone reveal to potential sex partner they are HIV positive or have full blown AIDS being suppressed.
Furthermore, many poor Africans may not be able to afford condoms because of poverty. In other words, PEPFAR program is giving Sub-Saharan Africans youth false sense of security, particularly the younger generation with raging hormones who are HIV positive! They are going to descend on other HIV-free youths with similar raging hormones and the result will be the death of a generation.
This is going to be the death of Africans as nation or race. The African youth cannot afford to sit back and feel that the foreign researchers have their best interests at heart. Otherwise, they would unleash a program in an environment educating the public about the deadly epidemic will be difficult or impossible to enforce. HIV/AIDS is currently spreading exponentially in Sub-Saharan Africa region the time when the scramble for its vast natural resources is fierce by the very people pushing HIV/AIDS drugs!
Most African elites in power do not seem to understand that their corruption and blind trust in foreign interests will permanently depopulate Sub-Saharan Africa. The depopulation will be due to genocide, underdevelopment, ignorance, poverty, HIV/AIDS and other related diseases. Black Africans have become synonymous with HIV/AIDS and its life prolonging drug cocktails from which foreigners participants and their African proxies are earning good living. African beauty and vast natural resources is submerged and replaced with HIV/AIDS!!!!!