BY AARON AINOMUGISHA. Local Governments will have to include HIV?AIDS activities in their budgets as the added measure to realise the desired target in fighting the pandemic, in line with “HIV/AIDS by 2030” target.
Ms Nankabirwa Joyce, the programs officer at The AIDS Support Organization-TASO says a lot is needed to realize 95% of testing, adherence & suppression, and anomalies in local government budgets must be addressed.
According to the Ministry of Health, currently there are 1.4 million people living with HIV in Uganda; 73% receiving treatment, 73% achieved suppression of the HIV virus to the point at which they are at low risk of infecting others.
1,200,000 of these are on treatment; 51,007 new HIV infections and AIDS related deaths now stand at 19,500.
Districts with high HIV prevalence include;Kalangala – 18%,Mbarara -15.2%,Gulu – 14.3%,Kabarole – 14.2%,Masaka – 11.5%,Kabale – 6.0%,Ntungamo – 5.6%,Isingiro – 4.8%,Rukiga – 4.9%,Luuka – 2.7%, among others .
Districts with low HIV prevalence include; Nabilatuk at 0.2%,Karenga at 0.6%,Amudat at 0.8%,Yumbe at 1.2%,Kween at 1.4% among others,as of August 2020.
