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Uganda Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS)
During the 1980s, Uganda developed the highest known
incidence of acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS),
with an
infection rate of over 15 cases per 100,000 population. By
mid1989 , the Ministry of Health had reported 7,573 AIDS cases
to the
World Health Organization (WHO). In mid-1990, local
officials
reported that at least 17,400 cases had been diagnosed and
the
number of actual AIDS cases was doubling every six months.
In
Kampala health officials also reported that more than
790,000
people had positive test results for human
immunodeficiency virus
(HIV), the infectious agent believed to cause AIDS, a
figure
estimated at 1.3 million by late 1990. Over 25,000
children under
the age of fifteen were HIV-positive, along with 22
percent of
all women seeking prenatal medical care at Mulago
Hospital, the
nation's largest hospital in Kampala. Belgium's Institute
of
Tropical Medicine reported that an estimated 20 percent of
all
infant deaths in Kampala were related to HIV infections,
and many
tuberculosis patients were also infected with HIV.
Uganda's first officially recognized AIDS deaths
occurred in
1982, when seventeen traders in the southern district of
Rakai
died of symptoms that came to be associated with the
disease.
Within a year, AIDS (then known as "Slim") was diagnosed
in
Masaka, Rakai, and Kampala, and by 1989, all districts of
Uganda
were affected. The disease appeared to spread by
heterosexual
contact, often along main transportation routes. Men and
women
were equally affected, although the death of a man was
more
likely to be reported to officials. The majority of AIDS
cases
occurred in people between sixteen and forty years of age,
and by
the late 1980s, an increasing number of babies were born
HIVpositive . These cases, more than adult deaths, shocked
people
into changing behavior that risked AIDS infection. Fewer
than ten
AIDS cases were reported among school-age children, who
constituted nearly one-half of the population, prompting
intensive efforts to prevent its spread into this age
group.
Government health officials initiated an aggressive
nationwide school education program to prevent the spread
of the
disease among the young, and they implemented nationwide
blood
screening and public education programs, including
television,
radio, and local press warnings in English and local
languages.
By the late 1980s, however, it was clear that the nation's
beleaguered health care system could not cope with the
increased
health needs, and the government intensified efforts to
gain
international assistance to slow the spread of this deadly
disease. The need to combat AIDS was urgent: according to
one
estimate, Uganda's population in 2015 could total about 20
million, rather than the 32 million that demographers
anticipated, because of AIDS, and the number of orphaned
children
would rise dramatically throughout the 1990s and after.
The transmission of AIDS was complicated by economic
decline
and problems of national security. In many areas, warfare
had
destroyed communication systems and health care
facilities. At
the same time, AIDS slowed the pace of economic
development,
because skilled workers and young, educated Ugandans had
high
infection rates. A few people were able to capitalize on
the
tragedy of AIDS--a small number of local medical
practitioners
claimed to have cured AIDS victims and became wealthy
fairly
quickly. A few street vendors in Kampala sold vials of a
liquid
they identified as Azidothymidine (AZT), a drug being
tested for
possible AIDS treatment, at prices ranging as high as
US$1,000
per vial. They were able to reap fortunes from desperate
AIDS
victims and their families, despite government warnings
that no
AZT was available in Uganda.
Data as of December 1990
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