HIV advocates in Uganda 'losing faith' as country works to prevent, treat new infections, PlusNews reports

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Oct 20 2011

PlusNews examines how "corruption scandals, frequent treatment shortages and accusations of a misguided prevention program" have undermined progress in the fight against HIV/AIDS in Uganda, a country that had "won plaudits in the early days of the epidemic for the aggressive stance taken by President Yoweri Museveni." Uganda "lowered its HIV prevalence from 18 percent in the early 1990s to about six percent in 2000," the news service notes. According to PlusNews, "Some of Uganda's most active campaigners in its 30-year fight against HIV are losing faith in the government's ability to effectively counter the epidemic as the country struggles to provide treatment and prevent more than 100,000 new infections every year."

The news service speaks with a number of HIV/AIDS advocates in the country who cite the president's support of prevention programs that do not emphasize condom use, the questioning of evidence-backed prevention techniques such as medical male circumcision, a lack of proper coordination at the top of the HIV response, and the exclusion of grassroots communities in high-level HIV decision-making as issues that have led to "disorganization" and "stagnation" in the country's HIV response (10/18).

This article was reprinted from kaiserhealthnews.org with permission from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. Kaiser Health News, an editorially independent news service, is a program of the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonpartisan health care policy research organization unaffiliated with Kaiser Permanente.

Posted in: Disease/Infection News | Healthcare News

Tags: AIDS, Circumcision, Health Care, HIV, HIV/AIDS, HIV-1, Research

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Circumcision is Harmful

Ronald Goldman, Ph.D. says:

October 20, 2011 at 10:07 AM

Many professionals have criticized the claims that circumcision reduces HIV transmission. Circumcision advocates ignore that circumcision causes physical, sexual, and psychological harm. Other methods to prevent HIV transmission (e.g., condoms and sterilizing medical instruments) are much more effective, much cheaper, and much less invasive.

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What? "the questioning of evidence-backed prevention techniques such as

Tom Tobin says:

October 20, 2011 at 12:52 PM

What? "the questioning of evidence-backed prevention techniques such as medical male circumcision"
There is nothing evidence-backed about using male circumcision to prevent HIV.
The world's biggest field trial for circumcision was in the US in the 1980s, when more than 80% of the men were circumcised.  Their circumcisions did not prevent or lower the incidence of HIV, HPV, or sexually transmitted diseases.
Now that males are no longer routinely circumcised in the UK, Canada, New Zealand, or Australia, there is no corresponding jump in the infection rates.  France has 10% of the HIV cases per male population, compared to the US, and the French very rarely circumcise.  The Danes, who also do not circumcise, have less infections than that.
The doctor who advises the World Health Organization on circumcision, Dr. David Tomlinson,  invented the "improved" Gomco, the "improved" Plastibell and the "improved"
Accu-circ. This means he very likely makes money every time one of the devices is sold.
In the US, we've buried hundreds of thousands of circumcised men who died of AIDS.
Condoms prevent disease for both partners.
Circumcision prevents disease for no one.

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