HIV Rates Rises In Uganda After Aids Prevention Strategies Shifted Focus Abstinence Only Policies

[applegrove]

HIV Rates Rises In Uganda After Aids Prevention Strategies Shifted Focus Abstinence Only Policies

By Amanda Peterson Beadle

http://thinkprogress.org/health/2012/08/03/637971/hiv-rate-rises-in-uganda/

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Uganda had seen a sharp decrease in the nation’s AIDS rate, but after its decline in the 1990s inspired public health strategies to fight HIV infections, a new study shows that Uganda and Chad are the only two African nations where the number of AIDS cases is rising.

The HIV infection rate in Uganda grew from 6.4 percent in 2005 to 7.3 percent in 2012. But at roughly the same time, the United States spent about $1.7 billion to fight AIDS in Uganda through the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), which teamed up with faith-based groups in 2003 and emphasized abstinence. Instead of continuing Uganda’s decreasing number of HIV infections, the survey shows that the public health campaigns, including the PEPFAR-sponsored “Get Off the Sexual Network” message, may have backfired:

On one hand, 90 percent of Ugandans today acknowledge sexual fidelity in a relationship as a health imperative, according to the survey results; on the other hand, roughly 25 percent of married men said they had multiple sexual partners.

The survey found that 75 percent of Ugandans were knowledgeable about condoms in sexual health but that fewer than 8 percent of married men who were having sex outside their marriage were using condoms.

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[applegrove]

1. Evangelicals should be hounded to answer for this. Just like the catholic church is

hounded for their stance on birth control. I hope this goes viral.

[xchrom]

2. Du rec. Nt

[girl gone mad]

3. Fundies who promote these policies..

should be forced to pay the health care and drug treatment costs of every newly infected patient above the prior baseline rates.