Govt AIDS policy missing the point - activist

The prominent Ugandan AIDS activist, Beatrice Were, has said her country's policy on the pandemic is misguided and moralistic.

The Associated Press quoted Were as saying, "Political leaders, religious people have been [campaigning against] the use of condoms, moralising the issue of AIDS as if it was a moral dialogue, yet it's a health issue."

Uganda was hailed as a model for Africa for lowering its infection rates from over 20 percent in the early 1990s to just 6 percent at present, but experts now fear the country's anti-AIDS gains could be lost because of what they see as an increasing emphasis on abstinence by major donors.

Stephen Lewis, the UN special envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa, earlier this year blamed the US for funding cuts and a new emphasis on promoting abstinence, which he said had contributed to a recent condom shortage in Uganda.