The very high rate of human immunodeficiency virus infection experienced in Uganda during the 1980s and early 1990s created an urgent need for people to know their HIV status.
[2] To further Uganda's efforts in establishing a comprehensive HIV/AIDS programme, in 2000 the Ugandan Ministry of Health implemented birth practices and safe infant feeding counseling.
The Ugandan government, through President Yoweri Museveni, has promoted this as a success story in the fight against HIV and AIDS, arguing it has been the most effective national response to the pandemic in sub-Saharan Africa.
[5] Other awareness programmes are arranged annually nationwide by the Uganda Network of AIDs Support Organisations to provide HIV Training, the exercises involve community members, health workers, musicians, partners and community activists such as Canadian Lanie Banks who led musician participants in the 2023 HIV Training awareness campaign.
These trainings are aimed at equipping Ugandans with HIV, TB and AIDs knowledge[6][7] Some residents in southern Uganda believe that Tanzanian soldiers introduced HIV/AIDS into the region during the 1979 Uganda–Tanzania War, spreading the disease by having sex with civilians.
[8] An overarching policy known as "ABC", which consisted of abstinence, monogamy, and condoms, was set up with the aim of helping to curb the spread of AIDS in Uganda, where HIV infections reached epidemic proportions in the 1980s.
This message also addressed the high rates of concurrency in Uganda, which refers to the widespread cultural practice of maintaining two or more sexual partners at a time.
[12] President Museveni said, "We are being told that only a thin piece of rubber stands between us and the death of our Continent ... they (condoms) cannot become the main means of stemming the tide of AIDS.
[16] A 2004 study published in the journal Science also concluded that abstinence among young people and monogamy, rather than condom use, contributed to the decline of AIDS in Uganda.
It is claimed statistics have been distorted through the inaccurate extrapolation of data from small urban clinics to the entire population, nearly 90% of whom live in rural areas.
It has been suggested that anti-retroviral drugs have changed the perception of AIDS from a death sentence to a treatable, manageable disease; this may have reduced the fear surrounding HIV, and in turn have led to an increase in risky behaviour.
[25] Although abstinence has always been part of the country’s prevention strategy it has come under scrutiny since 2003 following significant investment of money for abstinence-only programs from PEPFAR, the American government’s initiative to combat the global HIV/AIDS epidemic.
PEPFAR is channeling large sums of money through pro-abstinence and even anti-condom organisations that are faith-based, and believe sexual abstinence should be the central pillar of the fight against HIV.
Some leaders of small community-based organisations also report they are aware that they are more likely to receive money from PEPFAR (which is the largest HIV-related donor to the country) if they mention abstinence in their funding proposal.
In other countries such as Zimbabwe or South Africa, inept leadership has led to a serious crisis; some such as former President Thabo Mbeki deny the link between HIV and AIDS.