Declining rate of HIV infection

"Uganda has recorded declining rates of HIV infection since 1993," Personal Update (Ireland) reports, September 2005. "Among pregnant women the rate of HIV rose from 24 per cent in 1989 to 30 per cent in 1992, but by 1999 it had dropped to 10 percent, according to the latest figures from the AIDS Control Programme (ACP) in the Ministry
of Health. Among patients suffering from sexually transmitted infections at Uganda's leading hospital, Mulago, HIV infection rates fell from 44.2 per cent in 1989 to 23 per cent in 1999.

"The Government's campaign to make abstinence the first call went counter to the accepted wisdom of western AIDS professionals and was in huge contrast to neighbouring countries like South Africa, Botswana, Namibia and Zambia. . .

"In Botswana, 38 per cent of pregnant women were HIV positive in 2003, compared to 6.2 per cent of Ugandan women."