US Government Misinterprets Ugandan HIV/AIDS Success Story :: Essays Papers

US governance Misinterprets Ugandan human immunodeficiency virus/AIDS achievement StoryThe join States Government should embrace a comprehensive human immunodeficiency virus prevention policy that emphasizes condom use, rather than the current policy which is mostly ground on misinterpretations of the Ugandan HIV success story. According to the United States Agency for International Development (USAID)which manages most of President Bushs Emergency Plan for AIDSin 1991, 15 percent of Ugandans were infect with HIV. By 2001, the rate was 5 percent, a drop unmatched anyplace in the world. How this was shame and what this means for the shape of Washingtons programs to agitate AIDS overseas has been tragically misinterpreted by the US Government. According to Dr. Justin Parkhurst, who wrote his language on Ugandan HIV prevention policy at the University of Oxford, Uganda was booming for reasons different than the US Government officials would have you believe. A frequent mis take, he said, is the notion that declined prevalence was due to a few specific interventions by the Ugandan government. He emphasized that the government was but one workeramong numerous NGOs, church groups, community activistsin the fight against the virus. He as well as emphasizes that condom use, rather than abstinence and universe faithful, was the most important demeanour change that influenced declined HIV prevalence. Unfounded claims of Ugandan success have persisted in international policy discourse, he noted. Although the Ugandan experience could provide priceless information to other nations in their prevention efforts, he said, inappropriate recommendations based on poor interpretations of evidence must not be utilize as the basis for policy. Such misguided policy pervades the US Governments HIV prevention activities. While the Director of UNAIDS-Uganda, Dr. Ruben de Robiene, commented, I dont know what the Uganda Model is, no one knows, the religious adjust within the US Government is convinced that it knows Ugandas secret abstinence and being faithful. According to a USAID report, Condom social marketing did not forge a major role in Ugandas relative success. Dr. Anne Peterson, a physician and the USAID director of global health who is responsible for overseeing US anti-HIV programs, says, Kids atomic number 18 willing and able to abstain from sex. The core of Ugandas success story is good-looking A, big B and little C. Dr. Peterson said the USs HIV prevention policy is not an ideological balm for religious conservatives or any other group beholden to the Bush administration.