Village-based AIDS prevention in a rural district in Uganda

To design, implement and evaluate a village-based AIDS prevention programme in a rural district in north-western Uganda. A baseline KAP survey of the general population was carried out to design a district-wide information campaign and condom promotion programme. Eighteen months later the impact achieved was measured through a second KAP survey, using the same methodology.

Anonymous structured interviews were conducted in March 1991 and October 1992 with 1486 and 1744 randomly selected individuals age 15-49, respectively.

At 18 months, 60% of respondents had participated in an information session in the past year (47% women, 71% men) and 42% had received a pamphlet about AIDS (26% women, 58% men). Knowledge about AIDS, high initially (94%), reached 98%. More respondents knew that the incubation period is longer than one year (from 29% to 40%), and were willing to take care of a PWA (from 60% to 77%). Knowledge about condoms increased from 26 to 63% in women and 57 to 91% in men. Ever use of condoms among persons having engaged in casual sex in the past year increased from 6 to 33% in women, and 27 to 48% in men. Fifty per cent of condom users criticized lack of regular access to condoms.

This is the first documented example of the impact a village-based AIDS prevention programme can achieve in a rural African community. Critical areas to be improved were identified, such as: women must be given better access to information, more attention must be paid to explain the asymptomatic state of HIV infection in appropriate terms, and condom social marketing must be developed.