AIDS rate stagnates, but more work needed - Govt

Uganda's HIV/AIDS prevalence rate has stagnated at about 6.5 percent over the last three years, up from the usual 6 percent, according to the country's AIDS Indicator Survey for this year. Although the findings showed a "subtle" rise in prevalence between 2002 and 2005 in nine antenatal clinics around the country, experts maintained that there was no concrete evidence to suggest that overall rates were on the rise, the local newspaper New Vision reported. "What we have seen is one upward bounce in HIV in some antenatal clinics. We need to get another data point in 2006 and then we may know," Dr Alex Opio, the assistant commissioner in the Ministry of Health, was quoted as saying. Uganda is often hailed as a model for Africa for lowering its infection rates from over 20 percent in the early 1990s to the more recent 6 percent.