Ugandan Health Officials Claim Human Rights Groups Are “Spoiling Our Response to HIV/AIDS”

Jim Burroway

November 15th, 2011

Daily Monitor, Uganda’s largest independent newspaper, reports that the Uganda Network of AIDS Service Organizations (UNASO) has identified several deficiencies in the country’s fight against HIV/AIDS. Among the shortcoming cited include a shortage of qualified health workers, anti-retroviral medications, and test kits. But the Ministry of Health sees another culprit:

However, Ministry of Health is blaming the stagnant HIV prevalence rates in the country on uncoordinated response to the epidemic by pro-gay and lesbian civil society organisations. Uganda’s HIV prevalence rates have remained between 6.5 and 7 per cent for about two years.

According to Dr Zainab Akol, the coordinator of the national Aids Control Programme, the number of Ugandans dying from Aids-related infections has reduced significantly over the last two decades; but added that the fight is now being derailed by the civil society.

“They are spoiling our response to HIV/Aids. They are derailing us by dragging us to human rights issues of homosexuals. We in the health ministry do not want to know your sexual orientation. We treat everyone so long as that person is sick,” she said.

Akol claims that Uganda was denied a US$270 grant from the Global Fund to Fight Tuberculosis, Malaria and HIV/AIDS due to lobbying by human rights groups. A major AIDS NGO however denies the charge:

However, Mr Godfrey Tuwesigye of HURINET Uganda, described Ms Akol’s comments as misleading. “We have never called for cutting funding for HIV/Aids activities. We are just telling the ministry to streamline lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) in HIV/Aids activities. If in future we get a new type of virus among homosexuals, will they say they were not aware?” Mr Tuwesigye said.

Two months ago, we learned that Health Minister Christin Ondoa is also a pastor at Life Line Ministries, where she works under the direction of apostle Julius Peter Oyet. He is one of the most influential evangelical leaders in Uganda you’ve never heard of. Oyet was present in the gallery when the Ugandan Parliament first considered the introduction of the Anti-Homosexuality Bill in 2009, and he has been very open about his belief that homosexuality should be a capital offense. Oyet, who is also President of the Ugandan branch of the U.S.-based College of Prayer (or COP, which itself is a ministry of Rev. Fred Hartley’s Lilburn Alliance Church in Atlanta), was made a member of M.P. David Bahati’s staff to lobby Parliament for the bill’s passage. While Bahati is the bill’s author and sponsor, Oyet played a crucial role in its drafting.

Jim Hlavac

November 16th, 2011

So, heterosexuality is the main transmitter of HIV/AIDS in Uganda as are the majority of inflicted — and the solution is to round up the gays? And leave the heteros on the streets? Egad – are they this delusional? And the answer is, alas: yes.

AfroGay

November 16th, 2011

To which we say … thank you Global Fund. This is exactly how Apartheid South Africa eventually saw its eventual demise.

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