The findings of Edward C Green and Rand L Stoneburner are rock solid and the facts speak for themselves. Condoms are not the answer for AIDS in Africa, as the scientific experts (Green and Stoneburner), the Ugandan community of faith (www.uceglobal.org), and the Pope have all concluded. Will those with financial resources now consider funding efforts that are both culturally appropriate and scientifically based?

The facts show that condoms did not play a big role in the Ugandan success of the 1990’s.The graphs published in SCIENCE (30 April 2004) show the evidence that the Ugandans had already changed their behavior to abstinence and faithfulness prior to 1995 when condoms began coming into Uganda along with the returning westerners for whom Uganda had been previously unsafe. (post Idi Amin and Milton Obote regimes).


Behavior change of abstinence and being faithful (AB) is substantiated by simple condom math, utilizing the data on actual numbers of condoms that came into Uganda as reported by Douglas Kirby (9/2008) as well as population estimates from 1990. From 1987 to 1995, each Ugandan man aged 15 or older had, at best, 2-5 condoms in a year that he had any condoms at all. (www.uceglobal.blogspot.com)


How can a scientist continue to claim that condoms played any significant role in the Ugandan success? It is time to listen to the words of Sam L. Ruteikara, co-chair of Uganda’s National AIDS-Prevention Committee in an editorial to the Washington Post 6/30/08 “…Most HIV infections in Africa are spread by sex outside of marriage: casual sex and infidelity. The solution is faithful love. So hear my plea, HIV-AIDS profiteers. Let my people go. We understand that casual sex is dear to you, but staying alive is dear to us. Listen to African wisdom, and we will show you how to prevent AIDS.”

Can we be humble enough to fund the indigenous behavior change strategies that have worked in Uganda? If the scientific community cannot, maybe the rest of us can. Time is short and a race is at risk.

Kim K Dernovsek MD
The text above is the text of my online Letter to the Editor of Forbes commenting on the story “A Jihad on the AIDS Mafia” about Edward C Green in which Dr. Green asks, “How can a secod-or third-rate contraceptive be our best weapon in the war against AIDS?”

Preventing pregnancy
By BARBARA MUSSO
A CARING PREGNANCY CENTER

THE PUEBLO CHIEFTAIN
June 20, 2009
I have been on staff at A Caring Pregnancy Center for 13 years and have consulted with literally thousands of young people who have come in for services…My position has given me a unique perspective to observe what pregnant young women have actually learned from their sex ed classes.

These teens tell me that abstinence is mentioned but that “most of the class time is used discussing condoms.” They come away with the feeling that they can have sex safely as long as they use a condom. Yet, we know that those who choose to use condoms have higher failure rates at preventing pregnancy than those who choose to abstain. The comprehensive condom-centered sex ed program in the Pueblo City Schools has been a significant contributing factor to the high teen pregnancy rate in this city…True abstinence is not being taught.

The young women we see at A Caring Pregnancy Center are routinely asked if they have been using anything to prevent pregnancy – and if not, why not? I have never had a young woman tell me she did not know how to prevent pregnancy. They have consistently said one of the following:
•They were already on some type of birth control pill.
•They used a condom but it broke or fell off.
•They chose not to use a condom because they were “with” the same boy for a while.
•They “didn’t want to.”
•All these kids knew where and how to find birth control…

One of my greatest concerns is that the leadership in this community has lowered the bar to such an extent that our youth are behaving as expected – early onset of sexual activity with the natural outcome. Sexual activity (often with numerous partners) leads to pregnancy, sexually transmitted diseases, depression and wounded lives. Later, marriages are broken due to lack of bonding with the marriage partner as a consequence of numerous sexual partners prior to marriage; thus the breakdown of the family.

We must change the message from “abstain until you are ready to have sex, then use contraception” to the healthier alternative. Abstinence until marriage says, “We believe in you! You can use your own personal power, self-regulation, to wait until you have achieved important goals and are ready to choose a life mate. Then you’ll enjoy the best sex for the rest of your life!”

It deeply concerns me that we expect our children to behave as rutting animals unable to resist their basal urges when we know it is highly possible to resist and should be expected. We have been teaching to the lowest common denominator and we need to raise the bar for the sake of this generation and the next….Click here to read entire article

Barbara Musso is executive director of A Caring Pregnancy Center in Pueblo, Colorado.

In Sub-Saharan Africa and many other areas of the world, HIV/AIDS has devastated families. A decision to abstain from sex until marriage and be faithful in marriage can be the difference between life and death. Show your support for the youth and couples who make this pledge. Universal Chastity Education (UCE) is now on facebook!

Click the facebook badge below and and become a FAN of Universal Chastity Education.

Universal Chastity Education’s Facebook Page

Promote Your Page Too

Also, join our cause when you are at our page in facebook, by clicking the link on our wall…OR

simply click here: “Choose Life and Live!”

More than 35,000 young people in Uganda, Burundi and Tanzania have already made the commitment to chastity through UCE outreach programs. By becoming a fan of UCE and then joining our cause, you are showing them that you support and encourage them in their wise decision for health and life.

Kim K Dernovsek MD FAAD
Director and Medical Advisor
Universal Chastity Educatio
posted 19 May 2009

So says Ugandan who has lost eight brothers to the disease

By GAYLE PEREZ
THE PUEBLO CHIEFTAIN
December 01, 2008
A message of hope and the need to continue efforts to prevent the spread of the HIV virus was shared with the Pueblo Community College community on Monday as part of the annual World AIDS Day observance.

Michael Birungi Bahinyoza of Uganda, Africa, told of the efforts that are being made in his homeland that have reduced the HIV infection rate from 30 percent nearly 20 years ago to 6 percent in 2002.





CHIEFTAIN PHOTO/MIKE SWEENEY — Michael Birungi Bahinyoza gestures as he lectures about the decline of AIDS in Uganda during a World AIDS Day presentation Monday at Pueblo Community College.





Bahinyoza spoke as part of PCC’s observance of World AIDS Day, which is recognized each Dec. 1. Colorado State University-Pueblo also observed World AIDS Day with discussion by two HIV/AIDS victims as well as the quilt display of “The Face of AIDS,” which honors AIDS victims. World AIDS Day was started in 1988 to raise awareness and focus attention on the global AIDS epidemic. Worldwide there are an estimated 33 million people infected with HIV and two-thirds of those live in Sub-Saharan Africa, said Bahinyoza. “Africa is the HIV epicenter,” he said. “Last year alone, 76 percent of HIV-related deaths took place in Africa.”

As a result of those startling statistics, Bahinyoza, who is staying in town with a Pueblo family, said that more needs to be done to reverse that trend, especially in Africa. In his homeland of Uganda, Bahinyoza said that aided by the government the number of people infected with HIV has significantly decreased in the past two decades. In the 1980s and early 1990s, the incidence of HIV in Uganda was “astronomical.” “Virtually every family in Uganda is affected by HIV or AIDS,” said Bahinyoza. He has lost eight brothers because of AIDS. He said the government of Uganda stepped up in an attempt to slow the rate of infection of the HIV virus among the citizens.

“We needed to do something or we would find ourselves in great trouble,” he said. With support of the government, there was a push to encourage the young, single people to abstain from having sex and for married couples to be monogamous.“It was a do-or-die situation, a make-or-break thing,” he said. “It was tragic what was happening.” Bahinyoza said the message of “making choices that matter that are for health and life” was constantly being promoted throughout the country.

“Uganda has experienced the most significant decline of HIV prevalence of any country in the world,” he said. Bahinyoza said the rate has increased a little bit since 2002 to 6.7 percent following a strong push for natives to use condoms. He said the use of condoms provided a false sense of security and has led to an increase in HIV infections.

Again a campaign is being waged to promote abstinence and monogamy among the residents, he said. “It’s something that’s saved lives,” he said of the campaign. "We remind people to make healthy choices for life. “In the face of what’s happened in Uganda,” he said, “there is hope.”

The Pueblo Chieftain link to article here

Ugandans, Americans join to halt AIDS in Africa

By LORETTA SWORD 
THE PUEBLO CHIEFTAIN
November 22, 2008

Ignorance may feel like bliss, but where AIDS is concerned, it breeds death.

Nowhere is that more true than in sub-Saharan Africa, where up to 39 percent of the population of some countries is infected with the virus that causes AIDS.

Michael Birungi Bahinyoza is one of 33 children of a polygamous family – not an unusual statistic in his homeland of Uganda. More sobering is this one: He has lost eight brothers to AIDS, and four of them died with their infected wives.

“And that is not the worst scenario. There are many worse cases than mine in our country,” said the soft-spoken 38-year-old, his lilting English infused with the flavor of his native tongue. And yet Uganda is a shining success story among other sub-Saharan African countries, where the rampant infection among residents of child-bearing age has spawned more than 12 million orphans – some of whom won’t live to adulthood because they were born with the HIV virus in their blood.

Through a mostly government-run program that started in 1986, the country’s infection rate fell to a low of just under 7 percent in 2001, Bahinyoza said.

Bahinyoza is in Pueblo as the guest of Drs. Ken and Kim Dernovsek, who with their Ugandan friend in 2004 established Universal Chastity Education Inc., a nonprofit that is registered in Africa and the United States. Bahinyoza is the Ugandan coordinator, and Ken Dernovsek is the American director and medical adviser. The trio met in 2003, when the Dernovseks (she is a dermatologist and he is an endocrinologist) traveled to Uganda for dual purposes. He taught at Mulago Hospital in Kampala while she set about satisfying two requirements of a grant she had received from the American Women’s Dermatological Society…

CHIEFTAIN PHOTO/GEORGE HEYMANN — Drs. Kim and Ken Dernovsek (left and right) and Michael Birungi Bahinyoza are founders and leaders of Universal Chastity Education Inc., a nonprofit dedicated to stopping the spread of AIDS in Africa.

Condoms decrease the spread of AIDS, but they aren’t foolproof, she said. And they are virtually worthless against other sexually transmitted diseases that send patients to dermatologists for treatment of resulting skin problems.

Everywhere she lectured and toured, she said, she asked for the names of contacts who could teach her more about Uganda’s approach to slowing the spread of the disease, which was conceived during a period when Westerners had been banned from the country and there was little or no access to condoms.

She and her husband met Bahinyoza by chance at All Saints Cathedral in Kampala, where they had stopped on a Saturday while trying to choose a place to worship while away from Pueblo’s Ascension Episcopal Church.

Bahinyoza was an usher there. As the Dernovseks soon learned, he also was an active proponent of the national effort to convince Ugandans that the best way to protect themselves from AIDS (or to prevent infecting someone else) is through abstinence until marriage, and through fidelity within marriage.

Although Bahinyoza has converted from the faith of his family to the Anglican faith, he stresses that the message he shares with college students and at churches and schools across the Ugandan countryside is not a moral or religious one.

“It is knowledge. It is information about how to remain healthy,” he said. “We also teach life skills and the importance of choosing carefully your companions, and where you spend your time.”



COURTESY PHOTO — Michael Birungi Bahinyoza talks with a group of students in rural Uganda about how to protect themselves from the virus that causes AIDS.

Sadly, he said, Uganda has begun to see AIDS infection rates creeping up in some areas where Western influence has increased in the past five years.

Condoms are available again, and are frequently advertised on the radio. Residents of urban areas also are aware of anti-viral drugs that can slow the progression of HIV to full-blown AIDS and prolong lives, but they see the drugs as a cure and some are losing their fear of the disease.

“In some areas, there is a false belief that condoms prevent AIDS, and that there is a cure for it,” Bahinyoza said. “People are becoming complacent. But still, we can teach them to change their behavior.”

But millions of people live beyond the cities’ borders and have no access to radio, TV or news of treatment for AIDS. Those are the prime targets Bahinyoza and the Dernovseks hope to reach with their foundation. Their efforts have been endorsed by the highest-ranking bishops of the Anglican and Catholic churches in Africa, as well as by government and education leaders.

Ken Dernovsek said the materials used, and the way they’re presented, are acceptable to Catholics because they stress abstinence ….“It’s a matter of providing information about how to protect themselves and others in a way that honors their health” while changing behavior that ultimately results in honoring themselves and others as human beings, he said.

The Dernovseks hope Americans will donate cash to the cause, which would go toward travel expenses and the publication of newsletters and follow-up programs for youngsters 13-19 years old.

They also hope that a similar approach to abstinence and chastity will catch on in the United States, where AIDS rates have declined since their peak in the early 1990s, but where other STDs, and teen pregnancy, are rampant in many areas.

Although their message is one of education, Bahinyoza and the Dernovseks remain fervent in their belief that prayer is a great healer.

Of the 33 million people worldwide who are infected with the HIV virus, Kim Dernovsek said, two-thirds of them live in sub-Saharan Africa. "Basically, an entire race is at risk, and we want to…click here to read entire article

Read an excerpt from the words of the co-chair of Uganda’s National AIDS-Prevention Committee, recently published by the Washington Post:

“…Indeed, the loudest HIV-prevention message in Africa is “universal access” to condoms, testing, anti-retroviral treatment, and assorted other drugs and devices. All these commodities must be transported, stored, distributed, advertised and resupplied endlessly. Meanwhile, effective HIV prevention methods, such as urging Africans to stick to one partner, don’t qualify for lucrative universal-access status.

Do not misunderstand me: Treatment is good. But for every African who gains access to HIV treatment, six become newly infected. To treat one AIDS patient with life-prolonging anti-retroviral drugs costs more than $1,000 a year. Our successful ABC campaign cost just 29 cents per person each year.

International suppliers make broad, oversimplified statements such as “You can’t change Africans’ sexual behavior.” While it’s true that you can’t change everybody, you don’t have to. If the share of men having three or more sexual partners in a year drops from 15 percent to 3 percent, as happened in Uganda between 1989 and 1995, HIV infection rates will plunge. It is that simple.

We, the poor of Africa, remain silenced in the global dialogue. Our wisdom about our own culture is ignored. Telling men and women to keep sex sacred — to save sex for marriage and then remain faithful — is telling them to love one another deeply with their whole hearts. Most HIV infections in Africa are spread by sex outside of marriage: casual sex and infidelity. The solution is faithful love. So hear my plea, HIV-AIDS profiteers. Let my people go. We understand that casual sex is dear to you, but staying alive is dear to us. Listen to African wisdom, and we will show you how to prevent AIDS." The Rev. Sam L. Ruteikara, co-chair of Uganda’s National AIDS-Prevention Committee, Washington Post, June 30, 2008, in an editorial entitled, “Let My People Go, AIDS Profiteers”

Let’s listen to African wisdom and learn how to prevent AIDS. Getting behind Universal Chasity Education (UCE) financially is a way the people of faith here help the people of faith there encourage their youth to, as said above by Fr. Ruteikara, “keep sex sacred — to save sex for marriage and then remain faithful” Please consider supporting UCE. UCE operates in Uganda and Burundi, AFRICA and is endorsed by the Uganda Joint Christian Council. Help save lives in Africa by funding the Ugandan success against AIDS. Please visit the UCE website and make a tax-deductible donation to UCE. Thank you and God Bless you.
Kim K Dernovsek MD
Director and Medical Advisor
Universal Chastity Education
www.uceglobal.org

“What the churches are inclined to do anyway turns out to be what works best in AIDS prevention.”
AIDS and the Churches: Getting the Story Right
by Edward C. Green and Allison Herling Ruark
Copyright © 2008 First Things (April 2008)

Responses to the global HIV/AIDS epidemic are often driven not by evidence but by ideology, stereotypes, and false assumptions. Referring to the hyperepidemics of Africa, an article in The Lancet this fall named “ten myths” that impede prevention efforts—including “Poverty and discrimination are the problem,” “Condoms are the answer,” and “Sexual behavior will not change.” Yet such myths are held as self-evident truths by many in the AIDS establishment. And they result in efforts that are at best ineffective and at worst harmful, while the AIDS epidemic continues to spread and exact a devastating toll in human lives.

Consider this fact: In every African country in which HIV infections have declined, this decline has been associated with a decrease in the proportion of men and women reporting more than one sex partner over the course of a year—which is exactly what fidelity programs promote. The same association with HIV decline cannot be said for condom use, coverage of HIV testing, treatment for curable sexually transmitted infections, provision of antiretroviral drugs, or any other intervention or behavior. The other behavior that has often been associated with a decline in HIV prevalence is a decrease in premarital sex among young people.

If AIDS prevention is to be based on evidence rather than ideology or bias, then fidelity and abstinence programs need to be at the center of programs for general populations. Outside Uganda, we have few good models of how to promote fidelity, since attempts to advocate deep changes in behavior have been almost entirely absent from programs supported by the major Western donors and by AIDS celebrities. Yet Christian churches—indeed, most faith communities—have a comparative advantage in promoting the needed types of behavior change, since these behaviors conform to their moral, ethical, and scriptural teachings. What the churches are inclined to do anyway turns out to be what works best in AIDS prevention….If we are to progress beyond science-by-popular-acclaim, we must accept that the evidence is much stronger for fidelity or partner reduction than for any of the standard-package HIV-prevention measures—in Africa at least—and so we need to rethink and reprogram AIDS-prevention interventions.

Admittedly, changing direction is hard when there has been massive investment in these “best practices.” It is not in the interest of a multibillion-dollar global AIDS industry to endorse interventions that are low-cost and homegrown and that rely on simple behavior change rather than medical products or services provided by outside experts. And so the major donors of AIDS programs continue to do the same things, expecting different results….Link to entire article

Edward C. Green is the director of the AIDS Prevention Research Project at the Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies, where Allison Herling Ruark is a research fellow.

Ed. note from Kim K Dernovsek MD: Those looking for a way to financially support the faith-based Ugandan effort against AIDS, can make a donation to Universal Chastity Education (UCE) at www.uceglobal.org or by clicking here

This post is from the online journal of Andrew Dernovsek, currently volunteering as a Peace Corps HIV/AIDS advisor in Ketane, Lesotho, AFRICA and is not intended as a representation of the views of the United States Peace Corps.*


We went to a mission outpost today. I have continued speaking on HIV at the villages, and this was another chance for me to speak to a large group of people. The church was located in the second gorgeous valley of Ketane. This is also the valley that hosts Quasing Falls, one of the landmark waterfalls of Lesotho.

The church itself is perched above the intersection of two large gorges that twist and turn their way through the otherwise flat valley. Coming into the valley you can see a lone building surveying the vastness of the conjoining river canyons below.

It was a wonderful sight, and it was almost as wonderful to watch the people trickling into the church from the gorges and all sides of the church. There are many places here at Ketane, which I feel words and even pictures cannot fully capture. This is one of those places.

I spoke at the end of mass, as usual. My Sesotho has been getting better albeit slowly. I gave my full HIV presentation, and was able to field simple questions on abstinence and faithfulness in marriage.

The people at this Church said they understand the idea of faithfulness, but struggle in practice. Abstinence I can understand is very difficult and a hard struggle, but it absolutely bewilders my mind to have married people say they struggle with faithfulness. Leaving all religion completely out of it, I think that human beings naturally are monogamous, and that even the most morally corrupt person will feel the pain of a cheating lover. This is the first and only time I encountered this, and hopefully they were just giving me a hard time, I offered up advice and encouragement as best I could.

Some of you reading this might say, well yes then you should teach about condoms. To this I say no, and I say come to Quasing, come to Ha Sekhola, come to Ketane, see it, live it. If, and I mean a serious if, you can get a steady supply of five condoms per couple per week to these places thirteen hours in the middle of nowhere. Then guarantee that these condoms are not expired. Then, guarantee that they have not been exposed to harsh heat or cold along the way. Finally, make sure that every single person in these areas is educated on exactly how to a condom properly, risks and dangers, get them to understand that there is no substitute for a condom (some try to use a plastic bag), and that they must be used properly each and every time. If you could guarantee all this, then and only then can we even begin the debate on whether condoms should actually be here.

To debate you can show me the countries that have had success with condoms. Thailand being the only one, and this was only among commercial sex workers. To respond I will tell you of Uganda who lowered their HIV prevalence rate from 21% in 1991 to 6.7% in 2005. Dr. Edward Green author of “Rethinking AIDS Prevention: Learning from Successes in Developing Countries,” says that “The most important determinant of the reduction in HIV incidence in Uganda appears to be a decrease in multiple sexual partnerships and networks.”

Guess what? According to the Lesotho Ministry of Health 88% of HIV positive people in Lesotho are or have been married. Now, what does that tell the discerning thinker? If you still aren’t convinced I will have you talk to some of the Bo-Me (women) here at Ketane, and they will tell you how condoms are directly hurting their culture. Obviously, it’s a debatable point, but here at Ketane and thirteen hours in the middle of nowhere condoms are not plausible, feasible, or 100% effective. So we teach to wait until marriage and to remain faithful to your spouse in marriage.

We give the people strategies, methods, encouragement, and hopefully the strength to fight the HIV pandemic in the cheapest and most effective way possible. Get married, have lots of sex and lots of babies with that one person.

If anyone would be happy to challenge me on these points I would be happy to open a discussion with you, and give you a more in depth understanding of what exactly I do here at Ketane.

Andrew Dernovsek aka Thabo Nohana
23 September 2007
News from Lesotho 13 February 2008
*Note: republication/distribution of this post must include the disclaimer.

Pueblo couple backs Ugandan bid to combat AIDS

By MARVIN READ
THE PUEBLO CHIEFTAIN
December 15, 2007

A Pueblo married couple, Kim and Ken Dernovsek, have a ministry that reaches from Colorado to Uganda and nearby Burundi.

In an era when “just say yes” is a fairly typical approach to sexual activity outside of marriage, the Dernovseks are big on “just say no.”

What the Dernovseks – both are physicians – are principally taking aim at is HIV and AIDS, and they have become deeply involved in a spirited movement in Uganda, where there’s a cooperation between church and state that intends to reduce the incidence of the sexually transmitted disease.

That secular-religious partnership has been so effective that statistics reveal a significant decline from an alarming 21 percent prevalence in 1991 to a far more comfortable rate of 6.7 percent in 2005, according to the World Health Organization and an AIDS-focused United Nations agency.

“Uganda has experienced the most significant decline in HIV prevalence of any country in the world,” noted Edward Green, author of “Rethinking AIDS Prevention: Learning from Successes in Developing Countries.”

Green told the Joint United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS in 2002 that, “The most important determinant of the reduction in HIV incidence in Uganda appears to be a decrease in multiple sexual partnerships and networks” and that the effect of the interventions, particularly a reduction in the number of partners, “appears to have had a similar impact as a potential medical vaccine of 80 percent efficacy.”

The Dernovseks became aware of the Ugandan successes and formed a group, Universal Chastity Education Inc., to support the Africans. “The Ugandans have successfully promoted to their youth a lifestyle of respect for sexuality and saving sex only for a faithful marriage – chastity,” Kim Dernovsek said.

“UCE’s vision is to maintain that success for them and share it elsewhere.”

Ken Dernovsek said the efforts began under Gen. Yoweri Kaguta Museveni, who became president in January 1986.

“When the new president realized that a huge number of his military troops were HIV-positive or had AIDS, an effort was made to get the government, the schools and the churches – both Anglican and Catholic – onto the same page to address the issues involved here.”

The result, Kim Dernovsek said, was “a concerted and coordinated effort to promote abstinence for the unmarried and lifelong faithfulness for the married.”

The campaign often is summarized as A-B-C: Abstinence, Be faithful and Commitment.

“ ‘Where are you with God?’ is a popular question that is asked of Ugandans, even in the secular and governmental sphere," she said.

Dr. Ken Dernovsek (right) scans queries submitted during a Ugandan outreach session.

Kim Dernovsek, a dermatologist and venereologist, has been lecturing professionally, in the medical arena, since 2001 about the need for abstinence and fidelity as the only way to directly address issues related to STDs and AIDS: No contact, no problems.

The couple has been involved with Uganda and Burundi projects since founding UCE in 2003. They’ve made three visits to Africa since then. Dr. Kim Dernovsek received a grant from the Women’s Dermatologic Society that supported her effort to analyze the Ugandan HIV reduction strategy.

It has become the couple’s own priority to tie science and faith together for the purpose of saving lives and avoiding illness.

“It’s too bad that, often, good, scientific approaches seem to lose credibility just because they also have a faith component,” Kim Dernovsek said.

“In Uganda, when certain factions came into the nation promoting the use of condoms to stave off the diseases and AIDS, the rate of infection went up,” she said.

“That’s not good application of science,” said Ken Dernovsek, an endocrinologist.

While both doctors – fairly conservative Episcopalians – are swayed by moral issues involved with nonmarital sex, they are as adamant that the conviction to remain abstinent until marriage, and remain faithful and committed during marriage is an effective medical solution to the problems, and the Uganda experience is proof of the validity of the stance.

The UCE’s board of directors is composed of Puebloans and includes the Rev. Ephraim Radner, a former Puebloan who was rector of the Dernovsek’s parish, Ascension, and now is a university professor in Toronto.

Endorsees of the UCE program in Uganda and its related efforts in Burundi include 14 Anglican bishops, a handful of Catholic bishops and government officials, too.

“Chastity is an inexpensive prevention for the worldwide HIV/AIDS/STD pandemic, and it does not separate an individual from their faith, but rather it empowers it within them,” Kim Dernovsek said.

Among the governmental outreach programs is one involving college-age (but not necessarily college-educated) youngsters who are permitted to go into the school arena for two to three hours to talk about the efficacy of the abstinence approach. The targeted audience for the abstinence program is children of middle-school age through vocational-school age.

Ken Dernovsek recalled a session when, after the lectures, youngsters were invited to submit written questions to the lecturers.

“The questions from the children demonstrated the whole range of possibility, from abject ignorance to eye-popping sophistication,” he said, adding “that the older students couldn’t get to all the questions to answer them at the session.”

Kim Dernovsek said that, eventually, UCE hopes to put together a booklet of the most frequently asked of that sort of question for a reference for the kids.

“I think there’s a message for us in the United States. We need to take the time to think about AIDS, and pray about it,” she said, saluting the recent Dec. 1 World AIDS Day commemorations at her parish and other locations.

She said, “We can learn from the Ugandans the role of prayer, of doing – as they try to do – God’s will first, not our own. And I think we can be inspired by what can happen when all the various components of a community get on the same page and take a holistic approach to solving a problem.”…Source: The Pueblo Chieftain Online

Ed. Note from Kim Dernovsek MD FAAD:
1. The Ugandan campaign has been generally known as A-B-C; Abstinence, Be faithful and condoms, however the Ugandans themselves emphasize the A and B, often referring to the as “little c”, i.e. the smaller portion of the campaign for HIV sero-discordant couples or for those who refuse to follow A and B. Yet even among sero-discordant couples, some choose abstinence to fully protect the other partner from getting HIV. Ugandans also describe the success as “AB/STOP! or AB/Full STOP!” (Pastor Martin Ssempa 2006), Abstinence is the Best Choice (Uganda Youth Forum 2003), or say that the C is for Commitment. Since for many Christ is the source of strength and empowerment to achieve the self-discipline of AB, “AB thru Christ” is the inspired definition of ABC.

2. UCE is not a governmental outreach program and the UCE team are generally all college graduates; as such they are outstanding role models and youth educators.

Preparing for World AIDS Day December 1, 2007

In October of 2002, while researching a lecture at a national medical meeting, I came across what is now known as a landmark report to USAID entitled “What Happened in Uganda?” It described what is still cited as the most dramatic success against AIDS of anywhere in the world. The Ugandans had reduced their HIV prevalence from 21% in 1991 to 5% in 2001. As of 2005, it stands at 6.7% and is still considered the hope and the proof that community-wide awareness and prevention can change the grim AIDS statistics.

What was extra remarkable about this success was that this was coming from Uganda, East Africa. A developing world nation had come up with an effective strategy for AIDS reduction! It was in the post-Idi Amin, post-Milton Obote years, when American and European organizations were no longer on-site to lead the Ugandans, to fund an “effort” or provide the “solution”. The Ugandan community joined together and the people of faith played a key role.

Prevention of sexually transmitted disease via behavior is my academic interest, so I traveled to Uganda in 2003 and then spent a second month there in 2004. What I found in Uganda were churches that were overflowing, no matter the denomination. People described how when nearly 1 of every 3 people had AIDS, they were in church “all the time” already, with funerals…for without medication a person with AIDS lives about six years. They said, “We went to our knees”. And, regardless of the person’s walk of life-whether cab driver, doctor, church leader, school teacher or political leader, young, old, male or female- all spoke of tackling AIDS. They spoke of “getting tested”, supporting each other as results came in, telling youth to abstain from sex until marriage and of faithfulness in marriage… to one spouse. Introductions not infrequently began, “Hello. I am