NEWS- Kibaale district has been ranked in the 62nd position for HIV prevalence rate among the 146 districts and Cities that makeup the country for the year 2022.
According to the report from the Health Ministry, Kibaale district HIV prevalence rate stands at 5.2% which is higher compared to the national prevalence rate of 5.1% with the total number of 4,404 people currently enrolled on Antiretroviral therapy-ART.
The report puts Fort Portal City in the first position with an HIV prevalence rate of 17.8 % followed by Mbarara district with HIV prevalence rate of 14.4 % and Soroti City which has HIV prevalence rate of 13.3%.
The districts with least HIV prevalence rate include; Amudat with 0.4%, Nabilatuk with 0.5% and Kaabong with 0.6% among others.
For Bunyoro Sub region, Hoima city is ranked in 33rd position with HIV prevalence rate of 6.7% followed by Masindi district in the 36th position with HIV prevalence rate of 6.5% and then Kibaale district plus other districts.
However, Kagadi district is ranked in 77th position with a prevalence rate of 4.3% and Kakumiro district ranked in 89th position with 3.6% prevalence rate.
This shows that for Bunyoro Sub region, Kibaale district is in 3rd position but for Kibaale the greater, Kibaale district is in the 1st position which shows that HIV/ AIDS is at high rate in the district.
Kenneth Kuteesa, a Health worker at Kibaale health center IV in Kibaale Town Council has urged the general public to be vigilant and shun acts that exposes them to contracting the deadly disease.
The report comes days after Uganda joined the rest of the world to mark the International AIDS Day on December 1.
In Uganda, women are most affected by HIV and out of 1.4 million people living with the disease, Eight hundred sixty thousand (860 000) are women and 80 000 are children.
Meantime, Health workers in Kikuube district have been warned against neglect of duty and absenting themselves from duty.
Kikuube Resident District Commissioner (RDC) Amlan Tumusiime expressed dismay that several health workers do not value their work.
He noted that recently he carried out impromptu visits to different health facilities but unfortunately, he discovered that many health workers report for duty late while others leave work very early.
Amlan added that he also discovered a high rate of absenteeism among many health workers, mostly on weekends.
He noted that this challenge is affecting the provision of better service delivery to the local people of the district and challenged health workers to change their attitude towards work.
Commissioner Amlan noted absenteeism, late reporting and early departure is one of the big challenges killing health service in the district.
He described the situation as neglect of duty by health workers and sabotaging government efforts in offering better health service to the citizens.
Amlan noted that the government increased and is paying good salary to health workers to do their work but they have failed to offer service as expected.
Vincent Opio the Kikuube district vice Chairman warned the health workers against mistreatment of the patients as one way of encouraging the local community to seek health services from established health facilities.
He underscored a need to sensitize health workers on the proper way of handling the patients adding that poor handling of patients by health workers is pushing away the community especially expectant mothers from seeking medical services from the health centers.
