Wednesday, October 13, 2010 2:18 AM

Treatment Literacy workshop reports

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In Uganda, Uniformed Forces (UFs) are among the high-risk population and vulnerable groups.

Among the UFs, prevalence rates are quite highcompared to the general population. This is due to the nature of their work which makes them live away from their spouses, thereby increasing
the risk of HIV infection. A number of prevention, treatment and care interventions are in place to mitigate the impact of the HIV and AIDS pandemic.

This has led to a number of successes for example in Police in 2003 the sero-prevalence rate dropped from 44% to 13%. A significant change in behavior was also realized. (Presentation from Uganda Police).

CHAIN has been closely working with Uniformed forces. In early 2005, CHAIN held stakeholders’ meetings with the Uganda People’s Defense Forces (UPDF), Police, and the External Security Organization (ESO). The major aim was to explore ways of forming partnerships and also popularize the treatment literacy handbook, ‘A Guide to Antiretroviral Therapy’ that CHAIN produces once a year. A number ofHIVand AIDS issues were discussed among which was the treatment literacy gap which featured prominently in all the four institutions. As one of CHAIN’s core objectives, treatment literacy was identified as a potential area for collaboration.

As a follow up on this, CHAIN organized the first three-day residential treatment literacy empowerment workshop for healthcare professionals in the UFs, at Ankrah Foundation in Mukono in November 2005. The main objective of the workshop was to bring together health care professionals to discuss HIV and AIDS treatment updates and prevention strategies. That marked the beginning of our collaboration with the UFs.

The Community Health And Information Network (CHAIN).
Community House, Plot No. 809 Kanyanya Gayaza Road P.O. Box 16051 Kampala, Uganda Tel: +256 0414 568786,
email:info@chainproject.co.ug

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