AIDS in Uganda

Dr Peter Mugyenyi runs one of Africa’s largest HIV medical research institutes, the Joint Clinical Research Centre in Kampala, which he helped to found in the early years of Uganda’s AIDS epidemic. Uganda was the first African country in which AIDS was identified. Peter explains the realities of HIV treatment in Ugandan clinics today, a decade after effective drugs against the virus started to become more widely available in African countries. Life prospects for hundreds of thousands of Ugandans are much better than they were. Yet an estimated 40% of adults with HIV are not receiving any treatment. The proportion of untreated infected children is even higher. In conversations with Ugandans who are living with HIV, fellow medics and health workers, activists and government representatives, Peter Mugyenyi explores the successes, failures and challenges in getting the best possible treatment to every Ugandan who needs it. That ambition is also a vital part of preventing the continuing transmission of the virus in African countries. (Photo: Dr Peter Mugyenyi and staff at Butolo Anti-retroviral Therapy Clinic, Uganda. Credit: Andrew Luck-Baker)