The percentage of the population that was affected in Uganda was 7.3, which was among the adult population. Thus, a total of 1.6 million persons are living with HIV. The instances of any historical outbreaks of the disease occurred in 2011. According to the Ministry of Health (MOH, 2014), 176, 948 of the affected population are children. HIV is primarily higher in women comprising 8.3 percent than men covering 6.1 percent. HIV predominance among key populations is relatively higher than the overall population. The course of new infections in 2011 was estimated at 162,294. In 2012, new infections stood at 154,589, and in 2013, it was approximately 137,000. In 2011, deteriorations in new HIV infections had been more prevalent among children below 15 years, from 27,660 to 15,411 in 2012. In 2013, declines were further down to 8,000. Incidences of HIV have reduced from 0.83 percent in 2009 to 0.77 percent in 2013. However, pockets of high HIV prevalence still exist among major populations (Ministry of Health: Knowledge Management Portal).
The disease was handled and controlled in the community by the Ugandan AIDS Commission (UAC). The UAC established the National Strategic Plan 2011-2015 to guide the adoption of multi-sectoral responses and major mainstream HIV and AIDS interventions to the main drivers of the endemic and other associated national plans. The strategic plan that was mainstreamed into the national development plan provided the general strategic direction for the countrywide response under four extensive thematic areas such as system strengthening, social support as well as protection, care and treatment, and prevention. In order to operationalize the countrywide strategic plan, Ugandan AIDs Commission alongside partners established a countrywide priority action plan that was responsible for articulating the major activities to be adopted by stakeholders for every strategic action. The countrywide priority action plan highlights the output effects, implementation timeframe and lead sectors in the implementation of the actions. The monitoring and evaluation of the national strategic plan outlines a structure for tracking and evaluating the interventions that have been stated in the national strategic plan.
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In the process of implementation, the UAC established investment case for HIV/AIDS to focus on high-value and high-impact strategies. The investment case stresses the need for priorities which are based on a strong understanding of national epidemiology and context. Thus, it calls for increasing evidence-informed activities among particular populations to lessen HIV transmission.
The planning aims and goals of the public awareness blueprint to regulate HIV/AIDS were to identify appropriate stakeholders to involve in the process that is result-oriented. Besides, it is to ensure that the goal of reducing HIV is achieved through the development of jurisdictional HIV prevention plan, implementation and monitoring of the plan.
The initiatives that were proposed by the government branches to mitigate the effect of the disease were the identification of stakeholders. The objectives and aims were to identify community members, HIV service providers engaged in HIV prevention, care, therapy services to contribute to the process. After the identification of stakeholders, the government moved result-oriented commitment process. This stage promotes coordinated, collaborative and seamless accessibility to HIV prevention, treatment, and care services such as substance abuse and mental health, to achieve high impact on reducing the prevalence and HIV-associated health gaps. The third step of the government departments was focused on jurisdictional HIV plan establishment, implementation as well as monitoring. The aim is to inform and monitor the establishment and execution of the jurisdictional HIV prevention plan and to make sure that the process of engagement enhances jurisdictional plan. Besides, it makes sure the plan is focused towards reducing HIV prevalence and other related health gaps in the jurisdiction.
Some of the measures suggested in the plan to reduce health risks are promoting a coordinated, collaborative and seamless accessibility to HIV prevention, treatment and care service that include substance abuse and mental health, to achieve high impact on reducing the prevalence and HIV-associated health gaps. The specific measures are effectiveness and costs considerations, the feasibility of high scale implementation, target population coverage, interaction alongside target population. Finally, focus on interventions that will have the greatest overall possibility of moderate HIV infections.
The plan will help the public to identify pathogens linked to the root of illness and other health issues by ensuring that the planning process considers other interagency services as well as being linked to HIV planning as suitable. Problems linked to program collaboration and service mainstreaming, social determinants of health and health equity, and sexual health is as well considered.
The plan suggests measures to prevent the outbreak of HIV by recognizing the role played by antiretroviral treatment in the nation’s efforts of prevention. Treatment providers for HIV must be incorporated such as nontraditional providers since they cover the syndemics, for example, TB, viral hepatitis, STD, mental health, substance abuse and homelessness. The treatment providers co-occur with HIV. Thus, they must ensure all their activities focus on reaching a goal of the jurisdictional plan and countrywide strategic plan. Further, the health providers should proactively involve other planning agencies and other national grantees during the planning process. Moreover, they should focus on health inequalities that promote the epidemic and must make sure there is a diversity of representation of the most impacted communities in the planning process. Last but not least, health providers should ensure that their partners involved in solving social and structural causes of HIV must inform the jurisdictional HIV prevention plan, taking part in the process and helping with expanding other opportunities to broaden the success of local planning.
References
Ministry of Health: Knowledge Management Portal. (n.d.). Guidelines on the use of antiretroviral drugs for treating and preventing HIV infection 2014 . Retrieved on 9 February 2018, from http://library.health.go.ug/publications/service-delivery-diseases-control-prevention-communicable-diseases/hivaids/guidelines-4.
