Let’s save young women from HIV/Aids scourge

Uganda is a beautiful country. Her people and physical features are marvellous. From one border post to the next, you won’t find Uganda wanting of smiling faces, happy, jovial, and hospital folks.

The pot-holed roads, dilapidated structures, flooded streets, blocked drainage channels, and ARV-boosted growth in pigs and chickens, among other things going wrong, negate the positives in Uganda.

As football lovers and musicians battle over supremacy, politicians are energising and strategising ahead of the 2026 elections, with some of their political parties rallying masses during nationwide tours or a birthday party for the national chairman. But attention should also be given to girls aged 15 to 25 years.

The Uganda Aids Commission (UAC) has revealed that more than two-thirds of the 30,000 new HIV infections reported by December 2022, were among girls between 15 to 25 years.

Dr Nelson Musoba, the UAC director general told this publication last Friday that women are more affected than men. “In our most recent data for 2022, the HIV prevalence was 5.1 percent (the national average), but when you break it down, for women, it was 6.5 percent and for men, it was 3.9 percent. So prevalence among women was much higher,” he said.

Dr Musoba said 30,000 of the 52,000 new HIV infections were among women. He, however, said 70 percent of the new infections among women, were females between 15 and 25 years due to a combination of factors such as wealth distribution, income, and culture.

“Young women are more vulnerable [to HIV infection]. The solution is about increasing communication that we communicate to young people through their peers,” Dr Musoba said, adding that UAC plans to use social media and collaborate with the Health ministry to ensure young people have access to prevention services.

However, social media has limits, since some of the girls and boys in rural communities may not have access to the internet. So UAC and its partners should cast wider nets to curb new infections across age groups, regions, vulnerabilities, and peculiarities.

Also, the partners must engage communities, parents, teachers, local leaders, and youth, among others. During the engagements, participants need to discuss the drivers for new infections, the ease with which to test for HIV and start treatment, mentorship for the girl child, menstrual poverty, and sexual and reproductive health, among others.

At the end of the day, Uganda and the world at large need healthy and productive girls, women, boys and men to benefit from the various promises and projects that are either still drafts or already at the implementation stage.

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