Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2008. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
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New Vision (Kampala) - October 12, 2008
Anne Mugisa
It was received by the Club's chairperson, Rehema Gokyalya, accompanied by her husband, Samuel Mwangu, at a colourful ceremony attended by many dignitaries. Twenty four other organisations around the world also received the same award.
The Mama's Club, an offshoot of TASO (The Aids Support Organization), was founded by Dr. Lydia Mungherera, an HIV/AIDS activist, as a psychosocial forum for HIV positive mothers and their children.
The members of the club, who include young mothers, are trained on how to live positively, have proper nutrition, safe motherhood, family planning, prevention of mother-to-child transmission, as well as infant diagnosis and care.
They also reach out to communities and contribute to the fight against stigma, according to Dr. Mungherera.
The club, with a secretariat on Bahai Road, four miles off Gayaza Road, has branches in Jinja, Masindi, and Bukedea and is soon opening another in Soroti.
According to Dr. Mungherera the award will inspire more positive mothers to share experiences and improve their wellbeing.
She paid tribute to TASO Uganda, the Nabagereka of Buganda, Sylvia Nagginda, the Steven Lewis Foundation and other partners for their support.
Another Ugandan, David Damba, a data management officer of TASO Mbale, scooped up 'The Young Investigator's Award' in the same conference in Mexico.
Damba, a biostatician presented an innovative approach to computerized data recording which earned him this unique award.
While Uganda and other HIV/AIDS organisation earned awards, protestors angry with the international community for not doing much about the pandemic demonstrated outside the conference. They wanted a well-funded global effort to stop the epidemic.
Critics insisted that while the US and other capitalist countries increased funding for anti-retroviral drugs for the poorer nations, the funding was inadequate.
The activists painted a bleak picture despite claims of progress against the disease, saying that big pharmaceutical companies were making huge profits at the expense of the desperate people.
Responding to the recent statistics released by the U.S. Centres for Disease Control, they said the AIDS situation in the United States of America and other countries was far from subsiding.
According to the statistics, instead of the previously estimated 40,000 new HIV infections in the United States over the past 12 months, the actual figure was more than 56,000, and that the situation is worse in the developing world.
According to UNAIDS, an agency on AIDS, 25 million people have died of HIV related causes, 33 million are infected with the virus and only 3million can access ARV, leaving an estimated 30million at risk of dying from curable infections.
The statistics also indicated that last year alone, an estimated 2.7m people got infected with the virus worldwide which translates to 7400 per day or three people per second.
In Uganda, the infection rate which had dropped from a national average of 18% to 6.1% has gradually increased to 6.4%.
The director general of the Uganda AIDS Commission, Dr. Kihumuro Apuuli, said bio-medical factors, social factors and economic factors were among the drivers of the epidemic.
Kihumuro warned that the new infections were outpacing the treatment. He said the 2005 sero-survey revealed that there were 230,000 new infections, adding that an estimated 940,000 people were infected with the HIV/AIDS virus in Uganda. Of these, only 125,000 are on ARVs leaving out about 300,000 people.
According to Dr. Watiti, a physician with Mild May Uganda, at least 100,000 children were infected with the virus, while 55,000 had developed AIDS and were in need of ARVs. But only 13,000 could access the life prolonging drugs.
Dr. Watiti said many children got infected through mother to child transmission due to improper medical care.
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