Gov't to use sports for HIV awareness in youth

By Nelson Kukundakwe and Raymond Baguma                          

Government of Uganda has embarked on a national campaign to use sports as a platform of raising awareness about HIV/AIDS among youth, and scaling up prevention and access services countrywide.

The campaign to scale up services for HIV/AIDS will be implemented in partnership with Uganda AIDS Commission, Federation of Uganda Football Associations (FUFA), and various UN agencies that include UNAIDS, UN Population Fund, World Health Organisation, UNICEF and World Food Programme.

The campaign dubbed “Protect the Goal Campaign,” is being implemented globally and was first launched during the 2010 soccer world cup finals in South Africa and early this year in Brazil.

It was started by UNAIDS executive director  Michel Sidibe as an advocacy initiative to use the power of sports in order to attracts millions of people to bring HIV into public domain.

Also, African Heads of State had endorsed the global campaign during the 23rd Ordinary Session of African Union meeting in Malabo, Equatorial Guinea in June this year, during which they signed on a symbol of the ball.

During a press conference at the Uganda Media Centre on Monday, Sarah Opendi, the state minister for health said the launch of the campaign in Uganda is influenced by the rising rate of HIV infections in young people.

Quoting the HIV/AIDS indicator survey, minister Opendi said that Uganda’s HIV prevalence stands at 7.3 percent, with 1.6 million Ugandans living with the virus that causes AIDS and new infections are substantially high among the young people.

Dr. Jane Aceng, the director general of health services added that 70 percent of the 137,000 HIV infections reported every year are among youth aged between 15 and 25 years.

Present were Prof. Vinand Nantulya the chairman of Uganda AIDS Commission, Musa Bungudu the UNAIDS country representative, Dr. Joshua Musinguzi the AIDS Control Programme manager, local artist Bebe Cool and Edgar Watson the FUFA chief executive officer.