Uganda AIDS Control Program

Uganda's national HIV response, one of the first AIDS Control Programs established by any African government, created within the Ministry of Health alongside a National Committee for the Prevention of AIDS after AIDS cases rose from around 900 reported by 1986 to about 6,000 by 1988. Beginning in 1986, the year Yoweri Museveni took power, President Museveni personally led a mass education campaign built around what became known as the ABC message, abstinence from sex until marriage, being faithful within marriage, and condom use as a fallback if the first two failed, delivered alongside efforts on blood safety, voluntary counseling and testing, and mother to child transmission prevention. Uganda's HIV prevalence fell sharply over the following years, from about 15 percent of adults in 1990 to between 5 and 6 percent by 2001, and the country is widely cited as the first in sub-Saharan Africa to acknowledge the epidemic openly and mount a sustained national response.