There has been a lot of news circulating that many donors from the western world will reduce funding for HIV/AIDS, citing the economic hardship that has hit the globe recently.
This left many people living with HIV/AIDS worried, and not knowing what will happen to them if donors who have been contributing largely for treatment and care finally withdraw the financial aid from Uganda.
By the end of last year about 140,000 people were on anti-retroviral therapy (ARV), while about 135,000 new infections were recorded in Uganda. About 20,000 of these are children born with HIV.
However The AIDS Support Organisation (TASO) Training Coordinator Hannington Kayivu assured people living with the virus and those who are already on ARVs that TASO will not stop caring for them because it has the capacity to sustain them.
Partners’ intervention
He disclosed that TASO partners will continue supporting the cause of caring for and treating people affected by HIV.
He said that the Regional Aids Training Network (RATN) has been assisting TASO in training counsellors, taking on more trainees and developing a common curriculum in training. Kayivu said that RATN has also enhanced capacity building in resource management and conferences, where people presented papers in evidence intervention made by RATN.
“With our partners like RATN and other partners, TASO has put in place a mechanism to sustain its clients and I believe that all our donors will not withdraw aid toward the elimination of HIV/AIDS in Uganda,” he said.
Kayivu was on Wednesday (22nd September) addressing residents of Mukungwe landing site in Masaka district, who turned out for a free voluntary counselling and testing.
However the TASO Eastern Uganda Regional Manager Henry Muzora said that there is a need for the government to involve people living with HIV/AIDS in its programs aimed at fighting poverty. “People living with HIV/AIDS are normal and healthy people, who should also be involved in the development programs of government,” he said.
Muzoora said the enhancement of household incomes for TASO clients in Bugisu, Bukedi, Teso, Bunyoro, Karamoja, Lango, Acholi and West Nile sub-regions, could easily be achieved if government involved people living with HIV in its programs like NAADS, which he said will strengthen the capacity of society to respond effectively to the HIV and AIDS pandemic.
He decried the lack of a CD4 count machine at the centre which has caused delays in putting people on ARVs. He said last year, the Mbale centre registered 1,788 new clients, 1,160 of them female, while medical care was provided to 9,150 individuals.
The TASO Mbale office takes care of about 600 orphans in Mbale, Tororo and Soroti districts who have been receiving donor support to pursue primary and secondary education in various schools.