Estimated worldwide HIV infections: 61 903 615 at noon on Wednesday March 30 2005.
Uganda, considered a beacon in Africa for its Aids-beating policies, is adopting sexual abstinence-only programmes financed by the United States that could undo its successes.
Human Rights Watch warns that the new policies, which promote abstinence until marriage rather than condom use, leave not only young unmarried people but also women married to unfaithful men without the knowledge they need to protect themselves from infection.
Research by Human Rights Watch has found that information on condoms, safer sex and the risks of HIV in marriage has been removed from primary schools, while some materialso used in secondary schools falsely suggest that condoms have microscopic holes that allow the HI-virus through.
Condoms have been widely available in recent years in Uganda and have helped keep HIV prevalence down to about 6%, after a big fall from an estimated 15% in 1992.
The infection rate dropped when President Yoweri Museveni’s government promoted openness about Aids and awareness of the dangers of HIV infection. But recently the president and his wife have spoken out against the use of condoms.
Human Rights Watch says Uganda is falling in with the US Christian right, which backs abstinence before marriage and believes that promoting condoms leads to promiscuity.
Source: Guardian Newspapers 2005