The report’s district-level data shows the epidemic remains geographically uneven, with the largest absolute burdens concentrated in central and peri-urban districts.
The chairperson of the parliamentary committee on HIV/AIDS and other Related Matters Sarah Kiyagi Netalisile has welcomed the proposal to teach MPs on condom use owing to the fact that all the MPs on this Committee have no training in the medical field, and yet following the changes in constitution of the Committee, some of the MPs were new and had limited knowledge on the terminologies used in HIV/AIDS sector.
Her remarks followed a request made by Denis Onekalit (Kitgum Municipality) who asked Uganda AIDS Commission to avail Parliament on the particular areas and sub-region with the low condom use and transactional sex, after these were cited as the major drivers of new HIV/AIDS infections by Uganda AIDS Commission (UAC).
In response, MP Onekatit wanted to know statistics on the major drivers of HIV infections including low condom use, transactional sex, and statistical information regarding the avenues of, say, transactional sex.
“Do you have an identified district or sub-region that you think we need to focus more on transactional sex and low condom use? Those days, we used to be taught about condom use, but in this dot com world, you may think we know how to use condoms, but people don’t know. Yes, it is true, our children don’t know that, we also don’t know,” Dennis Onekalit, (Kitgum Municipality said.
Meanwhile, speaking during a sitting of the Parliamentary Committee on HIV/AIDS and Related Matters on Wednesday, 15 October 2025, Tom Etti, the Director for Partnership at UAC presented the commission’s latest status report and pointed to a 64 per cent reduction in annual AIDS deaths from 56,000 in 2010 to 20,000 in 2024 and a fall in new HIV infections from 96,000 to 37,000 over the same period.
“These are impressive gains that reflect Uganda’s resilience and the strong leadership behind the national response,” he said.
The report shows the country is close to the UNAIDS 95-95-95 cascade: 94 per cent of people living with HIV are aware of their status, 90 per cent are on antiretroviral therapy (ART), and 96 per cent of those on treatment are virally suppressed.
Etti pointed out, “our 95-95-95 targets show we are close to epidemic control,” Etti told the committee, adding that more than 1.4 million Ugandans are now receiving ART.
The national successes formed the central, most positive message of the UAC submission that prevention and treatment efforts have substantially reduced deaths and new infections, and that viral suppression levels are high among those on treatment.
Etti stressed that these achievements provide a platform for accelerating the country towards the Presidential Fast-Track Initiative goal of ending AIDS as a public health threat by 2030.
The report’s district-level data shows the epidemic remains geographically uneven, with the largest absolute burdens concentrated in central and peri-urban districts.
Wakiso District had the largest number of people living with HIV (PLHIV), 180,300, and the highest number of estimated new infections in the year to December 2024 (3,950). It was followed by Kampala District with 73,600 people living with HIV and 1,840 new infections.
Buikwe District, meanwhile, had 30,100 PLHIV and 600 new infections. Mukono District shows 26,800 PLHIV and 570 new infections, while Luwero District has 25,000 PLHIV and 560 new infections, and Mubende District 24,000 PLHIV and 540 new infections.
The committee pressed the UAC on their plans to resolve the gaps presented.
Sarah Kayagi, the committee chairperson asked why over 4,700 children were still being born with HIV despite prevention efforts. “We appreciate the progress, but it is deeply worrying that thousands of children are still being infected at birth. We need to understand what is failing in the mother-to-child prevention chain,” she said.
Kayagi, also the District Woman Representative for Namisindwa raised concern over the number of girls getting infected, noting, “We have seen that from last year we have seen 37,000 new infections and out of this, 21,000 of these are young girls and 11,000 are boys, the number of young girls getting infected is twice the number of boys, this is an area of concern,” she added.
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