Uganda’s fight against AIDS pays off

By Charles Wendo FOR the ninth successive year, Uganda has recorded a decline in HIV infection rates. Experts monitor the trends by testing the blood of women attending antenatal clinics in 15 hospitals around the country. A new report from the Ministry of Health indicates that out of the women tested at the various sites throughout last year, 6.1% had HIV. This is a reduction from 6.8% the previous years, according to the HIV/AIDS Surveillance Report 2001. The average for urban areas declined from 10.9% to 8.7%, while in the rural areas the average was 4.2%, which is not significantly different from last year’s 4.3%. The assistant commissioner for national disease control, Dr. Alex Opio, says that this does not necessarily mean that 6.1% of all Ugandans have HIV. However, he says, it gives a reliable trend in HIV infection rates in the population. He says pregnancy is a sign that a woman is sexually active and if the infection rates are declining among pregnant women then it must be declining in the general population. The site that reported the highest infection rate was Nsambya, where 11.8% of the women had HIV. This is followed by Rubaga with 10.7%, Kagadi (Kibaale district) 10.5%, and Mbarara 10.0%. Matanyi (Moroto district) reported the lowest infection rate, with 1.9% of the women having the virus. This was followed by Mutolere (Kisoro) with 2.1%, Moyo 2.7%, Pallisa 3.8%, Kilembe 4.2% and Tororo 4.7%. Other sites were: Jinja 8.3%, Mbale 5.5%, Arua 5.2%, and Soroti 5.0%. The report shows a continued decline in HIV infection rates in all districts since the mid 1990s. The surveys have been going on since 1989 and each site tests between 250 and 500 blood samples every month. The highest infection rate ever reported since then was 30.2% in Mbarara in 1992, but the same site has reported 10.0% this year. Nsambya reported 29.5% in 1992 and 11.8% this year. The report also indicated a decline in Kyamulibwa in Masaka district where Ugandan and British experts have been monitoring HIV trends in the general population. According to the report, the prevalence of HIV among patients of sexually transmitted diseases in Mulago Hospital has fallen from 44.2% in 1989 to 29.4% in 1998 and further to 20.5% in 2000. The report puts the registered number of AIDS patients at 58,165. This is an increase from 55,861 in the previous report. The report says this is because there is a pool of people living with HIV who are becoming ill one by one. However, this is a gross under-estimation of the number of AIDS patients since many of the AIDS cases are not registered in the health facilities. Of the reported AIDS cases 53,879 were adults while 4,268 were children aged 12 and below. The number of people living with HIV in Uganda at the beginning of this year, says the report, is now estimated at 1,107,644. A year earlier the estimate was 1,430,000. This implies that over a one year period the number of people living with HIV in Uganda has reduced by 322,356. Out of the number estimated to be living with HIV currently, 543,753 are women, 453,127 are men while 110,880 are children under 15 years. The report estimates that during the year 2000, about 99,000 people became ill with AIDS compared to 112,000 in 1999. It now puts the total number of people who have died of AIDS, at 848,492. Since the previous year’s figure was 838,000, this implies that 10,492 people died of AIDS during the year 2000. Ends