MOST women in Kasese don’t use the female condom because they say it is noisy and hence inconveniences them during sex, a female district councilor has said.
“The women say it makes a lot of noise and interferes with their concentration,” Rehema Aryema, the district councilor for Nyamwamba Division in Kasese Municipality said recently.
Aryema, who is also a member of the National Community of Women Living with HIV and AIDS (NACWOLA made the revelations at a meeting convened by the Parliamentary Committee on HIV and AIDS.
“The women say the female condom should be modified so that it can be worn like a G-string to keep it firmly in place,” she said.
Aryema also said the influx of Congolese along the Uganda/DRC border, was straining the HIV services meant for Ugandans in Kasese and could be partly contributing to the spread of the infections in the district.
“We often suffer stock-outs because the demand is sometimes than supply,” she noted.
Aryema said it was hard to truck the HIV-infected Congolese clients because after getting services in Uganda, they disappear back into their country only to cross into Uganda to consume drugs meant for Ugandan citizens. In his report, Dr. Baseka gave an impression that the HIV scourge was on the decline in the district.
According to the Uganda AIDS Indicator Survey (UAIS) of 2011, the HIV prevalence in Mid-Western where Kasese falls is 8.2%, above the national one of 7.3%.
But Aryema contested the report sounding a need for a proper mapping about the spread of the disease.
“Two years ago we carried VCT in the mountains of Mahango and we found nobody positive. When we returnee a year later and tested one positive. But on going back recently, we tested 14 people positive. This means that the disease is spreading even
in the areas where it was not two years ago,” Aryema said.
A member of the parliamentary committee wanted to know how the district was handling the issue of sex workers and whether they were being sensitized about how to safeguard themselves against the disease.
Dr. Baseka told the parliamentary committee that the uniformed personnel and sex workers in the district were always too mobile to mobilise them for HIV services and called for more health within the uniformed forces to ensure follow up.
“Stigma is also a major challenge. Most of the HIV-positives prefer to go out of the district for medication and those from outside seek services here because they do not to be known in their communities, Baseka said.
“The HIV prevalence is high among the communities living in the fishing villages and in towns especially Hima, Kasese Municipality and Mpondwe/Lhubiriha town council,” Baseka said.
The district secretary for finance, planning and administration, Mike Asiimwe Mbakania, faulted government for watching on as Ugandans, especially the youth, engage in life-threatening behavior such the consumption of weed, mairungi and alcohol which have flooded the market unchecked.
An MP on the committee attacked some politicians alleging that they encourage the growing of narcotic plants like Mairungi and Marijuana for fear of losing votes saying they were not worth being representatives of the people.
The Committee chairperson, Sara Kayagi Netalisire, said they were on a countrywide familiarization tour to familiarise with the HIV status on the ground.
“We are moving around the districts to assess if the work being done in parliament was collaborating with the actual conditions on the ground,” the Manafwa district woman MP, said.
Sara Kayagi Netalisire attributed the high prevalence of HIV in the country on complacency which is promoted by the provision of ARVs.
“The people living with the HIV are increasingly looking better and therefore no longer as scaring as they used to be in the 1980s and the 1990s. People are now more scared of malaria, TB, pressure and other diseases than HIV and AIDS since the ARVS are available to extend their lives,” Kayagi said.
“In those days, people were dying every day. We would bury here and there and you could see people with a lot of rush and emaciated. This sent a lot of fear
“We drummed harder than we are doing now. But with the coming of ARVS, you will find Sara Lutalesire very healthy and very fat and you would say okay that is a healthy woman to go out with. Complacency has led to the rise in HIV and AIDS. As we speak now people no longer care. She urged individuals to be more responsible for their lives.
She expressed concern at the big numbers of commercial sex workers the committee had noticed swarming around truck drivers in Hima town as the legislators drive through in Thursday night to Kasese.
She also blamed the increase in the scourge on behaviour coupled with weak laws in the country to combat conditions that expose the people to risky behaviour adding, “They take advantage of the weak laws to do what they want.”
But she said Parliament was not just looking explaining that the House was pushing for the publishing and gazetting the AIDS Act.
The parliamentary committee later visited the Uganda side of the Uganda/D.R Congo side border market at Mpondwe Customs to familiarize themselves with the possible impact the cross-border activities including trade in the spread of HIV.
The committee donated a carton of male condoms to the office of the truck drivers. Commenting on the multitudes of people and trucks crisscrossing the border, several MPs said the area needed special HIV services, including a fulltime post for the supply of condoms at the border.
Source: New Vision
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