Arthur Araali
3 November 2009
opinion
Kampala — TWENTY-Seven years in the fight against HIV, only 15% of the estimated 1.1 million people living with HIV/AIDS in Uganda know their status. This is only 4% of all Ugandans.
The current HIV prevalence in Uganda is estimated to be 6.4% among adults according to the Uganda HIV/AIDS Sero-Behavioural Survey of 2004 to 2005.
It is feared that the above trend is once again on the rise. According to Uganda AIDS Commission, about 357 Ugandans are infected daily.
The above figure is very disturbing and contradicts the targets under MDG six - to halt and reverse the spread of HIV by 2015. Given the fact that Uganda is often held as a model for Africa in the fight against HIV/AIDS having been able to bring down the prevalence rate from18% in the late 1980s and early 1990s to 5% by 2000.
Many people in Uganda live as if they are already infected waiting for the signs and symptoms to strike before they go to the health centres. This attitude has affected their behaviour change. Several members of the community we have tested under Health Nest Uganda, a community-based VCT programme, have confessed that they all along thought they were infected with HIV.
A member of the marwa joint called group IV in Lunyo Entebbe took long to accept his sero-negative HIV results in one of our outreaches thinking that it was a hoax.
As a way forward, Uganda should give priority and roll out massive community-based HIV campaigns and service in combination with the traditional methods. In this strategy, we shall reach out to men, who rarely go to clinics.
Married couples account for 43% of all the new infections that occurred in 2008. In addition, the fishing communities are 10 times more vulnerable to contracting HIV than the general population.
Massive campaigns convince people to test for HIV. At Bugonga landing site, for example, 121 people volunteered for an HIV test after less that a week of mobilisation. Fifty-four members of group IV in Entebbe of which 95% were men volunteered for an HIV test after a health talk on the importance of knowing one's status.
Let us all unite and fight the epidemic while taking care of those who are already infected, together we can make a difference.
The writer is a minister of information for Tooro Kingdom
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