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Testing biological weapons on Ugandan Guinea pigs: Deadly Ebola virus breaks out in Luweero(Uganda)
http://watchmanafrica.blogspot.com/2011/05/testing-biological-weapons-on-ugandan.html
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Emerging Viruses: Aids & Ebola - Nature, Accident or Intentional?
www.youtube.com/watch?v=6-VhkR9FGvA
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America and the American Church Are Not Your Friends
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US faults Uganda as HIV/Aids increases
http://www.monitor.co.ug/News/National/-/688334/1188492/-/c0789lz/-/index.html
Posted Saturday, June 25 2011 at 00:00
Kampala
The United States government has raised serious concerns over Uganda’s failure to restrain the spread of HIV/Aids in the country and warned that US cannot continue funding treatment and care yet more and more Ugandans are getting infected.
Addressing Press Corps members at her farewell news conference on Thursday, Ms Joann Lockard, the public affairs officer of the US Embassy in Kampala, said Uganda has lost a bit of its energy in the fight against HIV/Aids epidemic.
“Uganda has made tremendous progress in combating HIV/Aids in the last two decades. But we are concerned. Uganda has lost a bit of its energy in the area of prevention,” Ms Lockard said. She added: “We cannot continue funding 85 per cent of ARVs when more Ugandans continue to get infected. The government must find ways to invigorate the fight against HIV/Aids beyond condom use and abstinence approaches.”
Uganda once held up as a model for Africa in the fight against HIV/Aids appears to be losing the battle against the pandemic due to increased infections and failure to stir efforts toward prevention programmes.
Strong government leadership, broad-based partnerships and effective public education campaigns all contributed to a decline in the number of people living with HIV/Aids in the 1990s.
However, Ms Lockard said the situation is changing.
Ms Lockard said the US government injects about $600 million in Uganda each year and that half of this money goes to health sector- focusing HIV/Aids treatment under the US President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR).
US remain Uganda’s chief donor towards HIV/Aids treatment and care, contributing about 85 per cent of the budget for provision of ARVs to people living with HIV/Aids. Available figures indicate that there are an estimated 1.2 million Ugandans living with HIV in Uganda, which includes more than 150,000 children. An estimated 64,000 people died from AIDS in 2009 and 1.2 million children have been orphaned by Uganda’s devastating epidemic.
A slot opens when a patient dies, highlighting an emerging crisis.
Uganda is one of the African countries where clinics and hospitals sometimes turn patients away due to lack of drugs. There are currently about 500,000 patients, who need treatment, but only 200,000 are getting it, but each year, an additional 110,000 are infected.
While the Aids body chief, Dr Kihumuro Apuuli, was reported out of the country, other officials, including the Uganda Aids Commission spokesperson James Kigozi, who said he was on leave, were unwilling to comment on the government’s failure to contain the spread of HIV/Aids in the country.
The US concerns over the increased spread of HIV/Aids in the country came after Saturday Monitor last week revealed that the government was sitting on at least Shs50.4 billion in unused donor funds for people living with HIV/Aids even as more than 300,000 people who require treatment continue to lack access to the life-saving antiretroviral drugs.
Auditor General’s report
This disclosure is contained in the Global Fund May 11 audit report, in which the Auditor General, Mr John Muwanga, faulted Ministry of Health officials for failure to utilise more than 85 per cent of the funds yet there are patients who need drugs but unable to access them.
In the face of the government’s failure to deal with the spread of the pandemic, Ms Lockard said the US will continue funding ARVs and asked the government to play its part in areas of prevention.
She said the government should promote circumcision as one of the approaches of complimenting condom use and abstinence.
Although there is a lot to learn from Uganda’s comprehensive and timely campaign against the AIDS epidemic, the opposition members in Parliament have since warned that emphasising Uganda’s success story must not detract from the huge consequences that AIDS continues to have across the country.
