In The News
Vital Measures in Fighting HIV/AIDS
April 7, 2007: Regarding the March 29 front-page article "Uganda's Early Gains Against HIV Eroding": I was chief of medical services at San Francisco General Hospital from 1980 to 1996. My tenure that coincided with the emergence of AIDS in the United States. I challenge the article's assertion that a multifaceted approach to combating HIV-AIDS in Uganda has compromised the initial reductions in the infection rates seen there in the early 1990s.
Indeed, an initial decline in transmission rates among youths was similarly eroded in the United States when advances in research and treatment reduced the sense of peril. A campaign based solely on the perpetuation of fear-based fidelity is not sustainable; nor is it compatible with the necessary investment in improving treatment and researching better ways to prevent the spread of the virus. What is needed, instead, is a comprehensive strategy to educate the population about how this virus is spread and how to protect oneself from getting it.
In Kampala, Uganda, Makerere University's Infectious Diseases Institute, an implementing partner of the Academic Alliance Foundation, treats nearly 10,000 patients who have HIV-AIDS, and prevention is a key component of the care. Counselors advise patients to disclose their status to their families, to follow their treatment regimen closely and to use proven prevention methods.
In the end, an educated, self-empowered population will be better protected than a fearful one.
MERLE SANDE
President, Academic Alliance Foundation
Arlington
