How Apac, Kwania are easing access to HIV/Aids treatment

Dr David Okino, the Kwania District health officer, said the bicycle initiative has hugely improved the accessibility of medical services by those living with the disease.

“...These bicycles help them in doing small-scale businesses, which improves their income and, therefore, improves on their adherence to medicines,” Mr Okino said.

The initiative is an effort of Union of Hope, a community-based organisation.

“Our initiative works towards creating a bicycle movement because we think the bicycle provides the mode of transportation to the people living with HIV,” Mr Moses Fred Ogwal, the organisation’s founder, said.

“If you see most of the people living with HIV, they have been considered to be a community misfit – that means they are less productive in the community,” he added.

The fight against HIV/Aids poses enormous challenges in Kole, Kwania, Apac, Lira, Otuke, Dokolo, Oyam, Otuke, Amolatar, and Alebtong districts, all in the Lango Sub-region.

The HIV prevalence rate in Lango varies from district to district. For instance, in Otuke, it stands at 5.5 percent, in Apac, it stands at 7.4 percent and in Kwania, it is at 5.6 percent.

Stigma, health facilities’ inability to conduct viral load testing, and poor adherence to medication due to biting hunger are some of the stressing challenges in the fight against the Aids epidemic in the area. Other factors are irresponsible consumption of alcohol, risky sexual behaviour, inadequate resources, ignorance, and people’s unwillingness to know their status.

Appeal

Kwania Resident District Commissioner (RDC) Richard Noon Arikwanga has since called upon Ugandans to stop stigmatising and discriminating against people living with HIV/Aids.

The executive director of the Union of Hope said the project is faced with stressing challenges such as high taxation on imported bicycles, costs of purchasing the bicycles, and inadequate resources.

“The government of Uganda is taxing a mounted bicycle $25 (about Shs93,000) every time we import. In the last two years when we received the bicycles, we had to pay $6,000 (about Shs22 million) on clearance, and that would have been used to purchase more bicycles,” Mr Ogwal said.  He further noted that the high taxation is deterring them from achieving their target of distributing 5,000 bicycles in five years.

 Ms Joyce Amoli, a mother living with HIV in Akwodong ‘B ’Village, Alira Parish, Aduku Sub-county in Kwania, said: “The bicycle given to me is helping me to move to Lira and buy beans which I resell within the community and get the money we use to save in our village savings and loan associations.”

Another beneficiary, Sophia Akullo, also of Akwodong Village, said this transportation helps them to go and collect drugs from designated health facilities.

 “Our medication adherence has improved because now we can ride more than 10 kilometres to pick our ARVs instead of having to walk,” said Ms Akullo.

 Findings of Bicycles for Development Research conducted by York University in Toronto, Canada, in collaboration with Union of Hope released on March 1 show that people living with HIV can do work faster and carry heavy loads on their bicycles.

 “We have realised that even the disabled women were able to use these same bicycles although there was a need to emphasise that even people with disabilities would need a tricycle,” said Ms Janet Otte, a community researcher at Bicycles for Development Research.

 However, the researchers discovered that there was a problem with inclusion and exclusion.

 “While it was so good that these vulnerable people are utilising these bicycles, the members of the community had some tensions, and they would say why are the bicycles given to only those living with HIV? Should we also get HIV to get the bicycle?” Ms Otte said.

 “And the general problem is that the road network is poor in many places because a lot of bicycles breakdown, and the women would use between Shs5,000 and Shs50,000 to repair their bicycles every month,” she added.