Uganda government continuing focus on HIV prevention, treatment, amid calls from groups to do more

"Uganda continues to fall short of achieving its goal of ensuring that 80 percent of people living with HIV receive antiretroviral drugs (ARVs) by 2015, according to the Uganda AIDS Commission (UAC)," PlusNews reports. "Some 62 percent of those needing HIV treatment were on ARVs in March 2012, up from 50 percent in 2010," the news service writes. "Civil society groups have called on the government to scale up treatment and halt new infections," according to PlusNews, which adds, "Recent statistics show that Uganda's HIV prevalence has risen from 6.4 percent to 7.3 percent over the past five years." The news service notes, "The government acknowledges more must be done, saying it will focus on HIV prevention and allocate more funds to fighting the disease," and it "recently developed a draft working paper on establishing a $1 billion HIV fund to explore alternative and sustainable sources of funding for its HIV/AIDS programs" (1/7).