A few months ago, the Uganda Network of Young People Living with AIDS (UNYPA) dished out over 23,000 condoms to the youth in Kamwokya’s ghetto under the Condom Campaign Awareness targeting out of school young boys and girls, Boda boda men, Market vendors and nearby bar tenders.
The Condom Campaign Awareness project is currently being run by UNYPA in Yumbe, Kamwokya, Kampala, and Eastern Uganda.
Reaching over 7,000 people in Kamwokya, the objective of the campaign was to promote safe sexual practices, reduce the risk of STIs and unintended pregnancies, and empower individuals through awareness, access, and culturally sensitive education among the people living in Kamwokya.
According to the Uganda Population-Based HIV Impact Assessment (UPHIA), the prevalence of HIV among adults aged 15 to 64 in Uganda is 6.2%: 7.6% among females and 4.7% among males. This corresponds to approximately 1.2 million people aged 15 to 64 living with HIV in Uganda. HIV prevalence is higher among women living in urban areas (9.8%) than those in rural areas (6.7%). The prevalence of HIV among children aged 0-14 is 0.5% which corresponds to approximately 95,000 children living with HIV in Uganda. The prevalence of VLS among all HIV-positive adults aged 15 to 64 in Uganda is 59.6%: 62.9% among females and 53.6% among males. The prevalence of VLS in children aged 0-14 is 39.3%.
The condom campaign’s outcomes contribute to both individual and community well-being by addressing the immediate health concerns related to sexual activity, fostering a culture of informed decision-making, and ultimately building a healthier and more empowered community.
With this campaign, UNYPA was able to successfully give out over 30,040 Male and Female condoms while empowering the community with correct condom use information thus ending the misinformation. The campaign also successfully carried out education sessions with Market vendors and Boda boda men regarding sexual health and rights thus promoting consistent condom use during sexual activity, emphasizing condom use as an effective method of contraception.
However, new research shows there has been a significant drop in HIV/Aids rate in Uganda since the early 1990s. The study by the Uganda Virus Research Institute in collaboration with the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine Uganda Research Unit, has found that new infections in men declined by 88%, from 0.96% in 1990-1992 to 0.12% in 2018-2021. In women, the corresponding HIV/Aids incidence decline was 60 per cent – from 0.68% to 0.26%.
The study, titled “Thirty Years of Change in HIV Incidence among Adults in the Kyamulibwa General Population Cohort in Rural Southwest Uganda, 1989-2021”, was recently published in the International Journal of Infectious Diseases and attributes the sharp decline in HIV/Aids incidence to changes in sexual behavior.
Among other achievements in the fight against HIV/AIDS, preliminary results from the 2020 Population-based HIV Impact Assessment (UPHIA) indicate that Uganda is making significant progress toward achieving the UNAIDS 95-95-95 targets. This means a higher percentage of people living with HIV are aware of their status, on antiretroviral therapy (ART), and virally suppressed.