12,000 New HIV-AIDS Patients Initiated on Art. 6/12/10
1000 of them are children below the age of 15 years while the rest are adults between the age of 30 and 35 years.
By Eriosi Nantaba
6 December 2010
Kampala, Uganda — An annual health sector performance report by the Ministry of Health for the financial year 2009/10 has revealed that more than 12000 new patients have started medication on Antiretroviral Therapy (ART). 1000 of them are children below the age of 15 years while the rest are adults between the age of 30 and 35 years.
"This indicates that more children contracted the virus as compared to the adults calling for strengthened efforts to control HIV among children," said Dr Nathan Kenya-Mugisha, the acting Director General of Health Services.
Nathan attributed the increased number of people to the improvement in accessibility of Early Infant Diagnosis in the last financial year. "The integration of EID to child days plus is one of the basic tools that the ministry in conjunction with Development Partners used in the research," added Nathan.
This was revealed in a ceremony held at Speke Resort Munyonyo to launch the 16th Government of Uganda-Development Partners Joint Review Mission (JRM) recently. "Government puts priority on the health sector because a healthy person is a productive person and thus with such efforts HIV is at the foot of being controlled in Uganda," said Dr Specioza Wandera Naigaga, the senior presidential advisor on health and population.This she said stressing the continuous efforts that the government laying emphasis on the good stock of health workers and drugs to treat malaria and HIV among others that the country is equipped with.
The Development Partners spearheaded by the United Nations Population Fund (UNPF) and the African Union Commission pledged to give priority to human resource in their budgets. "Dialogue with stake holders, NGO's and Development Partners can help Uganda have an excellent service delivery in terms of health workers," added Nathan.
Nathan pledged that even lower cadres in the health sector will be used to improve on the health sector performance of the economy. The JRM is a joint designation of the government of Uganda spearhead by the Ministry of health, in conjunction with Health Development Partners, Civil society and other key stakeholders who came together to delineate a way forward for health in Uganda.