by photographer Joseph Ouma
2000 FiftyCrows PhotoFund Winner

AIDS was first recognized in Uganda in the year 1982, at an international smuggling fishing village called Kasensero, in Rakai District. The disease caused untold misery and human suffering to the victims, many of them orphans. The orphans dropped out of school due to lack of proper caretakers. Some of them fled to the street and took up hooliganism as a means of survival, thereby causing more social problems for the government and the population at large. Capable and youthful manpower were claimed by the disease, which rapidly increased from 17 cases in 1983 to 4,200 reported cases, and an estimated 200,000 cases in total. According to the statistics of the National AIDS Control Program, by 1995, the numbers of victims were estimated to be approaching a million. About 5% of the population of Uganda would die of AIDS by the year 1997.

The magnitude of the disease made the government of Uganda realize that AIDS was no longer a health hazard alone, but had other social, economical and cultural ramifications as well that needed to be addressed by the collective efforts of both private and public sectors. A multi-sectoral AIDS control approach was declared in order to administer prevention and care efforts.

A number of AIDS organizations were formed to foster various services aimed at combatting AIDS. They include “AIDS in the workplace” by the Federation of Uganda Emploters, “The AIDS Prevention Project” by the National Resistance Army (now UPDF), and the “Care and Advocacy for Persons with HIV/AIDS” (TASO) among many others. Counseling, free blood screening, safe sex education, and seminars on living positively with the disease became prevalent. The training of nurses and other medical practitioners on AIDS and the delivery of treatment to patients ran concurrently with the training of AIDS educators at the AIDS Training Centre. At the same time, cultural practices like polygamy, adoption of widows and sharing of wives were relentlessly discouraged.

My project photographically highlights these methods used to control the spread of disease among the population. I hope that it will make people aware of the deady disease, and observe behavioral change. I want to help those in other countries adopt some or all of these preventitive and educational measures to help eradicate AIDS for good. I will continue this project until a definite method of control for AIDS is established.