HIV/AIDS, malaria and TB are placing a huge strain on Uganda’s already fragile health system. Health centres are under-funded, under-staffed and low on morale. Information gathering has been inaccurate and non-conclusive about the fight against disease and laboratories lack equipment, qualified staff, drugs and supplies.
Evident links between the three diseases have been largely ignored. In Uganda, 50% of TB patients are infected with HIV and 30% of AIDS-related deaths are attributed to TB. It is widely acknowledged that HIV infections result in a greater risk of death from malaria and malaria infection itself leads to an increase in HIV viral load among adults and possible increased mother-to-child transmission of HIV during pregnancy.
So far, health services have concentrated on single diseases and the effectiveness of the treatment has been reduced. AMREF and AstraZeneca are working together with the Ministry of Health to develop a project to combat all three diseases together at local and national levels.
Aims of the project
The main aim of the project is to create a local and national model to deal with HIV/AIDS, malaria and TB collectively - providing effective and efficient health care.
This will be achieved through training health workers, improving community-based prevention, treatment and care for malaria, HIV/AIDS and TB and strengthening links between the formal health care system and
Those initially targeted to benefit from the programme are poor and remote communities in the Luwero and Kiboga districts of central Uganda, particularly women of child-bearing age, people living with HIV/AIDS and children under the age of five.
Key achivements
- Almost 6,000 Village Health Team members have been trained, who make up over 1,100 teams across the two districts.
- Over 100,000 people have been reached through community education, which has led to a three-fold increase in HIV testing and and a 10% reduction in the number of new TB cases per year.
- the number of people being tested for malaria has increased 74% and deaths from malaria have halved
