(introduction...)

'Uganda is experiencing an epidemic that rivals the worst ever experienced by any nation... any discussion of the health sector in Uganda in the 1990s is dominated by STDs and AIDS in particular. Although other health issues remain critical, they are dwarfed by the magnitude and immediacy of an estimated 1.5 million Ugandans being infected with HIV

That is the World Bank's summary of the AIDS situation in its 1994 project proposal for a loan of US$ 73 million to Uganda to help control sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), including HIV/AIDS. Given that only a little over half the Ugandan population is over 15 years of age, the statistics mean that one in every six or seven adults is infected by HIV.

For some groups of people, the level of infection is worse. In Kampala, some 30 per cent of all pregnant women going to ante-natal clinics are infected, and in many parts of the country AIDS is the most common cause of adult admission to, and deaths in, hospital. During 1995 new evidence emerged that at long last the epidemic may be reaching some sort of plateau, or even declining. While still tentative, this evidence offers 'a glimmer of hope', and is discussed below.