World AIDS Day is coming up on December 1st. In Uganda it is celebrated at the national and local level. Bushenyi District is far ahead of other districts in Uganda for lowering rates and for research. This has much to do with Dr. Tumwesigye Elioda who is the MP for the district. He lost his brother to HIV in the early years of the epidemic and was also an MD in the region and realized that thousands of people where impacted by AIDS and too many of them were slipping through the cracks. So he turned to politics and has made it his mission to change the way Uganda deals with the HIV pandemic.
The man works tirelessly from 6 am to sometimes 2 in the morning. He is constantly in his car driving all over the district and back and forth from Kampala. He is the chairman of the Ugandan parliamentary committee on HIV/AIDS, and chairman of the global HIV/AIDS Inter-Parliamentary Union.
The Kabwohe Clinical Research Center (KCRC) was championed by him and is now a leader in research on discordant couples in the world.
It is also just down the hill from me and will probably partner with the AIDS Club at Ankole Western Institute of Science and Technology (were I teach) and with the Kitabi Poets. So World AIDS Day here we come!
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