Staff Writer
Days after parliament passed a divisive anti-gay bill, the normally bustling HIV/AIDS treatment center in Kampala, Uganda, is nearly deserted. The staff reports that the daily average of 50 patients has decreased, and that unused antiretroviral medications are piling up.
A resident medical officer at a US-funded clinic cautioned that fresh waves of HIV infections were developing as at-risk individuals avoided treatment facilities out of concern that they would be recognized and detained in accordance with the new regulations.
He declared, “The LGBT community in Uganda is currently under lockdown.” “Preventive services are lacking. They are unable to obtain condoms or ARTS (antiretroviral therapy).
Gay sex is punishable by life in jail under the bill, which President Yoweri Museveni signed into law last week, while “aggravated homosexuality,” which includes the spread of HIV, is punishable by death.
Until this year, the Kampala clinic served as a symbol of progress in the fight against HIV in Uganda, where, according to the Uganda AIDS Commission, 1.4 million people are infected with the virus and 17,000 people pass away each year as a result of its effects.
Now, when patients do visit, it’s frequently out of a complete need. As more people forego treatment, the severity of HIV cases has increased.
According to a US official, the measure will undo the nation’s progress in the fight against HIV/AIDS.
Dr. Jane Ruth Aceng Ocero, the prime minister of Uganda, refuted that claim by saying that her country would make sure that individuals who required access to preventative programs continued to have it.
However, according to Mary Borgman, country director for the US President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), which funds the Kampala clinic and about 80 other drop-in centers throughout Uganda, the trend of HIV patients avoiding treatment facilities is being mirrored on a national level.
Since the anti-gay measure was tabled in parliament in March, she claimed, fear has been preventing more people from seeking therapy.\
Not only those who are infected by the virus are concerned about the consequences. Many medical professionals are hesitant to treat gay patients out of concern that they would be accused of supporting and defending homosexuality.
mentioning gay behavior
According to Lillian Mworeko, the International Community of Women living with HIV/AIDS’s regional coordinator for East Africa, some healthcare professionals were concerned that treating LGBTQ patients might be construed as “promoting” homosexuality, a crime that would carry a 20-year prison sentence under the new law.
The Ugandan bill strengthened a British colonial-era legislation that already forbade homosexual relations. The new policy, according to its supporters, is necessary to combat efforts by Ugandans who identify as LGBTQ to persuade young people to become homosexual.
The updated version, which Museveni signed, changed a rule requiring people to report gay activities to only require reporting when a kid was involved and did not criminalize merely identifying as LGBTQ, as the original version did.
Local activists have criticized the law’s backwardness, pointing out that homosexuality existed in precolonial Africa, was accepted in most cultures than others, and was not viewed as unnatural or a sin, despite being praised nationally by public opinion and seen as a clear statement against the spread of “corrupt western mores” in African societies.
A medical officer stated, “The majority of these people, like transgender or queer people, have already experienced a lot.”
One of the medical officials at the clinic in Kampala, which is run by the neighborhood organization Icebreakers Uganda, said he understood the anxieties of LGBTQ individuals in Uganda, who frequently lead difficult lives marked by rejection from their families and arrests.
