Fishing communities in Uganda do not have adequate access to life-prolonging antiretroviral drugs (ARVs), posing a possible setback to the country’s fight against HIV, new statistics reveal. As of June 2012, just 15 percent of 6,225 fisher folk - considered one of the country’s most at-risk populations - in need of ARVs were receiving it, according to the Uganda AIDS Commission (UAC) in its annual review of the Uganda National AIDS Strategic Plan. Officials blamed low literacy among this segment of the population as well as the remoteness and inaccessibility of the islands where many of them are found. ‘Our HIV intervention among the fishing community in Uganda remains low and a big challenge. Most of these people stay in islands, which are hard-to-reach areas. Most of the islands lack health facilities,’ Peter Kyambade, most-at-risk populations coordinator at the Ministry of Health, told IRIN/PlusNews.

Pray: that the authorities will find the necessary funding to reach these remote fishing communities. (3Jn.1:2)

More: http://www.plusnews.org/Report/96894/UGANDA-Fishing-communities-missing-out-on-HIV-treatment