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Over the past 14 years, Uganda has seen a remarkable reduction in the number of people infected by HIV. In the early 1990s, Uganda had one of the highest rates of HIV infection in world.
Since 1992, the number of HIV cases has dropped by 30% down to 6.7% of the adults. These are incredible figures for Africa.
Unfortunately, their success story has become the dirty little secret of the Aids industry. Uganda's remarkable turn around was barely brought up at the recent international conference on Aids held in Toronto August 13-18, 2006.
The reason for the turnaround stems largely around the crested crane - the national bird of Uganda.
President Yoweri and Janet Museveni, Uganda's first lady, have aggressively promoted abstinence and monogamy as the way to avoid Aids. "The relaxing of traditional mores led to sexual freedom and a vulnerability to sexually transmitted diseases," said President Yoweri.
The crane has become the symbol of this fight for morality. On billboards throughout Uganda, two crested cranes are pictured with the words, "The crested crane sticks faithfully to one partner until death. Abstinence and faithfulness - 100% guaranteed."
The message of abstinence and faithfulness is singularly responsible for Uganda's dramatic reduction in HIV infection. Meanwhile, other African governments, such as Botswana, stumbled headlong down the road of political correctness giving away condoms. Their HIV infection rate runs at 24.1% of adults.
But despite the overwhelming success of abstinence in reducing HIV, the Aids industry does not want to hear it.
Canada's Stephen Lewis who serves as special UN envoy on African Aids publicly criticized President Bush's abstinence push as a way to fight HIV infection. Others such as Mary Crewe, who works for the Centre for the Study of
Aids at Pretoria University criticizes ABC - the strategy of Abstinence, Be faithful and Condoms -- as a middle age morality not relevant to modern society.
As Simple as ABC, by John Luik (Western Standard: November 6, 2006)
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