Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2002. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
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New Vision (Kampala) - December 16, 2002
Charles Wendo
Since the early 1990s the level of HIV infection in Uganda has been dwindling.
Now, contrary to what many people think, a new report says the decline resulted mostly from abstinence and faithfulness, and to a less extent condom use.
The report produced by a team of American and Ugandan researchers, is based on analysis of the changes in people's behaviours as seen in demographic and health surveys.
In their report titled What Happened in Uganda, the researchers say condom promotion "has played a key but evidently not the major role" in reducing infection rates. Their argument is that HIV prevalence started declining in 1992. This, they say, must have been the result of a reduction in new infections about 1989. By that time, they argue, very few people were using condoms.
The researchers, however, agree that increased use of condoms during the mid and late 1990s must have placed an additional muzzle on the virus that causes AIDS.
According to demographic survey reports, in 1989 only 1% of Ugandan women had ever used a condom, but this increased to 6% in 1995 and 16% in 2000. The figure for men rose from 16% in 1995 to 40% in 2000.
Prof. Edward Green of the Harvard Centre for Population and Development Studies in the US, says large numbers of Ugandans must have heeded to President Yoweri Museveni's earlier warning that 'you either abstain, be faithful or die.'
Greens, lead author of the report, says the fact that fewer Ugandans are having casual sex has contributed most to the decline. Various researches show that the number of people who have sex with more than one partner has reduced since the late 1980s. At the same time younger people begin to engage in sex at a later age, and the percentage of teenagers who are sexually active has reduced. "There is some power in promoting abstinence and being faithful," says Green.
However, the latest demographic survey shows that between 1995 and 2000, the number of unfaithful men and women has lightly increased.
Pastor Martin Sempa of Makerere Community Church says this relaxation is because people have lost track from Museveni's original message of abstinence and faithfulness. He says in Kampala the original bill boards advocating for abstinence have either collapsed or rusted, and a new breed of condom-promoting bill boards have replaced them.
"The whole anti-HIV/AIDS campaign has been taken over by the commercial interest of promoting condoms," Sempa says.
Dr. Charles Atim, Director of Youth Alive, says, "Many times some of the people who wanted to give us funds said 'if you are not promoting condoms we shall not give you the money'. We said no, we would rather be poor but stand by our grounds."
But the Director General of the Uganda AIDS Commission, Dr. David Kihumuro Apuuli, says there is no single magic bullet against HIV/AIDS. Therefore all the available options should be used.
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