By Ben Harder
From Boston, at the Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infection
The prevalence of HIV has fallen over the past decade in Uganda, but abstinence and monogamy—two elements of a widely advocated prevention strategy—deserve little, if any, credit for the decline in at least one region of the country, a new study suggests.
Of the three directives of the prevention mantra “ABC”—abstain, be faithful, or use condoms—only greater condom use appears to have coincided with a decline in the number of people living with HIV in western Uganda’s Rakai district, according to Maria Wawer of Columbia University.