Abstract

PIP: In 1991, Medecins sans Frontieres initiated an HIV/AIDS prevention program in Moyo District, Uganda, with the goal of gradually transferring responsibility for it to local people through the training of AIDS control advisors (ACA). Informational pamphlets were developed along with an action plan for a village-based information campaign, followed by the insertion of 8 women and 22 men into a two-week training course in Moyo Town on prevention measures and communication. The ACAs were evaluated monthly both qualitatively and quantitatively with an overall evaluation conducted in January 1992. All villages had been visited several times in the first five months, with the ACAs meeting 50,000 people and distributing 45,000 pamphlets and 40,000 condoms. Community collaboration was excellent, although condoms were distributed to only adults and older teenagers in response to local cries that condom distribution encouraged immorality. Some language difficulties were also encountered. ACAs continued to distribute condoms upon request over the period February-August 1992, but concentrated upon drivers, beer brewers and their customers, traders, musicians, soldiers, barmaids, fishermen, teachers and school children, traditional healers and birth attendants, and religious leaders. Subsequent to this period, the advisors received a week of training on conducting KAP surveys. Refinements were made later in the program with the Ugandan assistant manager ultimately taking over field responsibility in May 1993. Although the ACA team was reduced from 30 to 10 people, it continues to work closely with all district authorities.