Let’s address new HIV/Aids infections among young people
A health worker analyses blood samples collected from people living with HIV/Aids. Shortage of funds, coupled with Covid-19 disruptions, affected outreaches, distribution of condoms, HIV testing and treatment, triggering an increase in the new infections from 38,000 in 2020 to 54,000 in 2021. PHOTO | FILE
What you need to know:
- To make tangible impact and cause behavioural change among young people, we have to go back to the drawing board and restrategise. Times have changed but HIV/Aids hasn’t
Yesterday, December 1, Uganda joined the rest of the world to celebrate World Aids Day under the theme, “Rock the Ribbon”. According to the Uganda Aids Commission (UAC), about 1.4 million people are living with HIV/Aids and an estimated 54,000 people contract HIV every year.
Statistics from UAC also indicate that 17,000 people die of HIV/Aids annually. The majority of new infections are reported to be among young people and most especially young women. Although Uganda has over the years made commendable strides in the fight against HIV/Aids, the new infections we are now experiencing shouldn’t be ignored or downplayed.
Yesterday, in this very space, we expressed our support of Uganda Aids Commission’s call on the government to raise funds for the war on HIV/Aids by contributing at least half of the budget seeing as only 12 per cent of HIV/Aids programmes are now funded by the government.
Today, we would like to add that this funding and resources channeled to this fight should in a significant way target the young people, especially young women.
Forty years ago, regular messages of caution through radio, TV messages, songs, drama and so much more instilled the fear of the disease in Ugandans over and over again and this helped in rendering the fight an outstanding success. Unfortunately, what worked yesterday might not necessarily produce such success today.
Today the young need messages that speak to their time and age and on fora that they use if they are to relate and take heed. It is common belief that a number of young women are more afraid of getting pregnant than of HIV infection. But it doesn’t have to be this way. These kinds of skewed perspectives can be rerouted.
The drivers of the lifestyle choices made by the young should also be addressed in this fight, key of which is the high rate of poverty that causes vulnerability among the most at risk. Other notable drivers are poor access to HIV prevention services. It is not that people don’t fear HIV/Aids anymore, it is that the need to draft age and time appropriate response plans and devise new ways of dealing with an old enemy has been downplayed and overshadowed by other seemingly more pressing issues. That new infections are highest among young people should be pressing enough. After all they are our future.
We shouldn’t be too drunk with the glory of our past successful fight against HIV/Aids that we end up slackening on the job. To make tangible impact and cause behavioural change among young people, we have to go back to the drawing board and restrategise. Times have changed but HIV/Aids hasn’t.
