According to the study, abstinence education has shown significant effectiveness in
reducing AIDS in Uganda,
with the HIV infection rate dropping 50 percent between the years 1992 and 2000.
The east African nation is making a big impact with the revelation that the AIDS
epidemic can be curbed.
Riddled with HIV infections since the 1970s, Uganda has found miraculous
success by using abstinence as its
prevention strategy. Promotion of abstinence through billboards, radio programs
and school sex education
curricula has resulted in a slow and steady drop in HIV infection rates, as well as
new attitudes about conquering AIDS in Uganda.
“Uganda is one of the countries that attach great importance on promoting
abstinence among our youth,” said
Ahmed Ssenyomo, minister counselor at the Ugandan Embassy, in a speech to the
African American Youth
Conference on Abstinence.
When the program started in the late 1980s, the number of pregnant women
infected with HIV was 21.2
percent. By 2001, the number was 6.2 percent. The Harvard study also reported
Ugandan adults are not having
as much risky sex: of women 15 and older, those reporting many sexual partners
dropped from 18.4 percent in
1989 to 2.5 percent in 2000.
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