New York Times		
War Boosts HIV/AIDS in Northern Uganda		
27 September 2004

Article also published in The Washington Post and The Boston Globe

By GEOFFREY MULEME
The Associated Press
Monday, September 27, 2004; 2:43 PM 

KAMPALA, Uganda - The rate of HIV/AIDS infection in northern Uganda is nearly double that 
in the rest of the country because of devastation caused by 18 years of civil war, 
an international aid group said Monday. 

The conflict has shattered the health care system, forced thousands to flee their homes 
and left scores of children infected by rebel abductors, according to a report released 
Monday by the Christian relief organization World Vision. 

Uganda's national rate of infection is estimated at 6.2 percent and declining, but 
the rate in northern Uganda is 11.9 percent and rising, the group said. 

World Vision warned that Uganda - often praised for reducing the HIV infection rate 
from around 30 percent in the early 1990s - could see many of those gains evaporate. 

A group calling itself the Lord's Resistance Army is behind the brutal regional rebellion. 
It says it seeks to overthrow President Yoweri Museveni, but mostly attacks civilians 
to steal food and abduct children for use as fighters, laborers or sex slaves. More than 
1.6 million people have fled their homes in fear of such attacks. 

Families often reject girls rescued from the rebels, World Vision said. 

"Displacement, poverty, lack of heath care and the high prevalence of rape as a weapon 
of war all contribute to the high (HIV/AIDS) rates," the group said. "Poverty as a result 
of displacement has forced many women to engage in unprotected 'survival sex,' exchanging 
sex for food, soap or money." 

On the Net: 
World Vision:http://www.wvi.org/wvi/home.htm