"Be careful with your life, Aids Kills, and it still exists"-RCC Bayole as Fort portal City joins the world to celebrate World Aids Day

The tourisim city Resident City Commissioner, Bayole Stanley,  also the father of Inebantu, the Queen of Busoga is worried about the HIV infection statistics in the region. 

Bayole advised the locality, most essentially the youths to be careful while involving themselves in sex related affairs.

Furthermore, He advised that when someone tests HIV positive, he/she should start taking drugs as prescribed by health practitioners so that they can stay alive and healthy. 

Mr Bayole reiterated his call to Ugandans, most especially those in fort portsl to prevent themselves from getting infected with HIV/AIDS. 

According to him, HIV/AIDS limits the capacity of the infected person. 

“There are certain things that you cannot do when you are infected. Like in the army, we discovered that when somebody over-exerts himself with the virus, it can cause a problem. Therefore,  don't say let me get infected since the drugs are available and I will live a normal life. You will not die but you will have deducted on your capacity,” he said. 

The commemoration of this year ran under the theme: “Accelerating Interventions to End HIV/AIDS by 2030”.

The RCC explained that AIDS is a problem caused by indiscipline. 

“When we analyzed when it was threatening us, we found that AIDS was just from three points. Number one was prostitution, number two was blood transfusion before we checked the blood of the givers, then number three was from mother to child transmission in the womb,” he said. 

“But to show that it's not a serious disease, when you take the mother-to-child transmission, even without any intervention, we found out that only 30 percent would pass from mother to child even if the mother had the virus. Initially, we were worried that it was going through mosquito bites and so on. But then we found that it was not possible. So, we closed the route of blood transfusion. The one for mother to child we also closed it; because the technology which would stop transmission from mother to child became available.”

He further cautioned Ugandans against prostitution, saying that it's the main cause of HIV/AIDS infections. 

“You people please don't keep playing around with this problem. Yes, the drugs are there to suppress the virus, but it's not eliminated. But the advantage we are looking for in suppressing the virus is that when it is much suppressed, the virus doesn't spread so much,” he advised. 

“Please stop this indiscipline. All Ugandans should stop living a risky life. You hear the statistics that in the whole world there are 39 million people with the virus. People in the whole world are like 7 billion. Now out of the 39 million, 1.4 million are in Uganda, which is a high figure. Why should this be the case?” he wondered. 

Furthermore, the Bayole advised that when someone tests HIV positive, he/she should start taking drugs as prescribed by health practitioners so that they can stay alive and healthy. 

“Although it's not what I prefer for you, it's better than dying because if you live longer, you will be able to look after your children so by the time you leave this world, they are in a better position. You can work, make a contribution and as you have heard, you are less infectious if the viral load is suppressed. Therefore, from a national point of view, it's good because it will stop you from spreading the virus more aggressively.”

He also lauded the Ugandan researchers who are moving in the right direction to make a vaccine for HIV/AIDS. 

“There are even our children who are threatening to treat AIDS completely by killing the virus. I'm going to support and fund them fully,” he said.

“As we are still struggling with the ARVs, our people have found a medicine where you take one injection every two months instead of taking tablets every day. I want to thank our scientists for really doing a good job.”

Mr Bayole also recognized the efforts of the government of Uganda in fighting poverty through various programs like the Parish Development Model (PDM) and Emyooga. 

"The government has not only financially empowered, not only increases household income but it also helps to reduce vulnerabilities, especially of adolescent girls and young women in HIV infections. President M7 has always emphasized that health is wealth, I therefore urge Ugandans to test for HIV and know their status, if you test positive, treatment is available in all government facilities.

what you need to know:

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, HIV prevalence was high at 18 percent in the general population. It is now at 5.1 percent.

Approximately 1.4 million people are living with HIV and over 1.2 million of these are on treatment. In 2023 alone, 38,000 new HIV infections were registered, and 20,000 AIDS-related deaths were recorded.  Of the new HIV infections, a high proportion are adolescent girls and young women