Govt advocate for new approach to end HIV/AIDS

By Ben Musanje

23^rd April 2024

Government has confessed that there is a need to re-package the whole effort of ending HIV/AIDS following the stagnation in the past three years.

This was disclosed by Dr Robert Mutumba, the Assistant Commissioner for AIDS Control Program, Department of National Disease Control in the Ministry of Health while presenting the statistics of HIV prevalence in the country during the Media Breakfast meeting.

The meeting was organized by AHF Uganda Cares at their secretariat aimed at bringing together a diverse range of media institutions and personnel, HIV/Health government institutions, HIV/Health Civil Society Organizations, Communication experts in health reporting and community advocates among others.

Dr Mutumba noted that the country is still witnessing 130 new infections everyday among the general population with the highest number which is 43% being the young people.

Dr Daniel Byamukama who represented Dr Nelson Musoba, the Director General of the Uganda Aids Commission (UAC) at the event disclosed that the new mechanisms should ensure that by 2025 at least 23% reduction rate is registered from the 53,000 new infections that are recorded annually if to achieve 2030 plan is achieved.

According to UAC, Uganda registered more than 5310,000 new HIV infections and 61,000 HIV-related deaths in 2020, while over 2.6 million people have contracted the virus, out of which 1.3 million people are still struggling with it.

The data from the Uganda Population-based HIV Impact Assessment (UPHIA) 2020 indicated that 11% of persons living with HIV in Uganda were unaware of their status, since then the program data shows improvements in the cascade to 94:94:92 with 6% of People Living with HIV unaware of their HIV positive status at the end of 2023.