HIV/AIDS in Uganda

The very high rate of human immunodeficiency virus infection experienced in Uganda during the 1980s and early 1990s created an urgent need for people to know their HIV status. The only option available to them was offered by the National Blood Transfusion Service, which carries out routine HIV tests on all the blood that is donated for transfusion purposes. The great need for testing and counseling resulted in a group of local non-governmental organizations such as The AIDS Support Organisation, Uganda Red Cross, Nsambya Home Care, the National Blood Bank, the Uganda Virus Research Institute together with the Ministry of Health establishing the AIDS Information Centre in 1990. This organization worked to provide HIV testing and counseling services with the knowledge and consent of the client involved.

In Uganda, HIV/AIDS has been approached as more than a health issue and in 1992 a Multi-sectoral AIDS Control Approach was adopted. In addition, the Uganda AIDS Commission, also founded in 1992, has helped develop a national HIV/AIDS policy. A variety of approaches to AIDS education have been employed, ranging from the promotion of condom use to 'abstinence only' programs.

To further Uganda's efforts in establishing a comprehensive HIV/AIDS program, in 2000 the Ugandan Ministry of Health implemented birth practices and safe infant feeding counseling. According to the WHO, around 41,000 women received Preventing Mother To child Transmission (PMTCT) services in 2001. Uganda was the first country to open a Voluntary Counseling and Testing (VCT) clinic in Africa called AIDS Information Centre and pioneered the concept of voluntary HIV testing centers in Sub-Saharan Africa.

The Ugandan government, through President Yoweri Museveni, has promoted this as a success story in the fight against HIV and AIDS, arguing it has been the most effective national response to the pandemic in sub-Saharan Africa. Though equally there has in recent years been growing criticism that these claims are exaggerated, and that the HIV infection rate in Uganda is on the rise.

There are striking similarities with the history of HIV/AIDS response in Senegal, where an equally high-level political response was encouraged by the fact that the HIV-2 strain of the disease was discovered by the Senegalese scientist Dr. Mboup.

Uganda has experienced the sharpest decrease in HIV/AIDS-related death rate in the world between 1990 and 2017, with an 88 percent decrease a timespanespan of twenty seven years. Other awareness programs are arranged annually Nation wide by the Uganda Network of AIDs Support Organizations to provide HIV Training, the exercises involve community members, health workers, musicians, partners and community activists such as Canadian Lanie Banks who led musician participants in the 2023 HIV Training awareness campaign. These trainings are aimed at equipping ugandans with HIV, TB and AIDs knowledge