February 20, 2008

Positive Ugandans With Disabilities Need Better HIV Info

In an opinion piece in Ugandan newspaper The New Vision/AllAfrica.com (allafrica.com, 2/19), Nassozi Kiyaga, executive director of Deaf Link Uganda, says that more attention needs to be paid to giving people with physical, sensory or disabilities valuable HIV/AIDS information.

“Cultural and social prejudices create misconceptions that people with disabilities are not at risk of infection because they are incorrectly assumed to be sexually inactive,” writes Kiyaga in the opinion piece. “However, people with disabilities do the same things as everyone else and are just as sexually active as other people.”

Kiyaga highlights the fact that people with disabilities are at heightened risk for living in poverty and being victims of sexual violence and rape, and says that “these realities are compounded by the enormous barriers that prevent them from accessing information, health care services and counseling facilities, which results into their neglect and marginalization.”

Kiyaga recommends partnerships between mainstream HIV/AIDS groups and organizations for people with disabilities, as well as increased education for health care workers on how to treat and counsel people with disabilities who are HIV positive.

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