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PROMISCUOUS FISHERMEN HAVE been blamed for spreading HIV and AIDS in a small village in Uganda.
In Kasensero 43 per cent of the 10,000 inhabitants live with HIV, compared to seven percent nationally.
The first case of AIDS in Uganda was reported in the village in the 1980s.
Raymond Byaruhanga, chief doctor at the AIDS Information Centre in the Ugandan capital Kampala, said that fishing communities around Lake Victoria “are the places with the highest HIV prevalence rates in the country”.
The mindset of the fishermen is to say, ‘one day my boat will overturn and I will die. Therefore there’s no need to be scared of HIV, it will take several years to kill me’.
Storms are frequent on Lake Victoria and a wave can easily overturn the light boats that the fishermen use. Few can swim and none wear life jackets.
Sex workers transmit the virus to the fishermen, who pass it on to other sex workers and to their wives. Sometimes the wives pass it on to other men while their husbands are away on the lake, often to traders who come to buy fish.
The flow of sex workers, traders and fishermen makes it very difficult to follow up on and treat patients, Byaruhanga said.
Source: YouTube/NTV Uganda
Once they finish a long shift, many of the fishermen head straight for the bars of the town and the sex workers who hang out there.
Josua Mununuzi, the owner of four boats, stated:
Most of the fishermen are interested only in drinking and in women.
He said “nothing has changed” in the 10 years he has worked in the area, except the faces of the prostitutes hanging around in the narrow streets, where the smell of urine mingles with that of rotting rubbish.
The good wages earned by fisherman attract a steady stream of sex workers from surrounding communities.
“Since it’s a fishing port, we get a lot of sex workers coming here,” said Kato Francis, a doctor at Kasensero’s run-down hospital.
Sex workers typically come to the town for a few months, often during the peak fishing season.
The going rate here for sex is as little as $2 (€1.50), or up to $3 for a ‘valued lady’.
Sheyla moved to the village two months ago. She said her clients regularly ask for sex without a condom, but that she always refuses.
However, she noted that the same cannot be said for all of her colleagues.
A friend of mine had sex with a man and when she took the condom off the man was bleeding … I’m scared of that.
Like most of the sex workers in town, Sheyla lives in a tiny room close to the bars.
With an average of five clients a day, she has saved up enough money to buy a small plot where she hopes to build a house.
A number of aid agencies have come to Kasensero in recent years to work on issues related to AIDS, Francis said, but added that “changes have been few and far between”.
- Emmanuel Leroux-Nega
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Unnecessary hysterics, we all know everything is done on pen and paper in this country, that’s why we have schoolteachers as ministers, won’t affect us for another 50years probably
@Stevie Doran: how about the new PPS card that’s not mandatory but obligatory even to make a tax query? All of the information will be kept in America because there’s less protection there? Sounds legit!
@Stevie Doran: I thought we had politicians as ministers. I worked in a bar once when I was in college and have never do so since, am I still a barman?
@Stevie Doran: at least if someone gets the details for €40 you’d know what it says! Be more efficient than the HSE anyway! Plus as Stevie said f all is digital here so we’ll be grand
@Deborah Behan: that’s a lie Deborah. The data is not being stored in the US.
@Deborah Behan: “All of the information will be kept in America”
That’s about the tenth time you have written that, and it has been false every time. How many times do you need to be told?
All your Twitter data is stored in America and you don’t seem to have a problem with that.
@Stevie Doran: The Revenue have ROS, The Gards have PULSE, Social Welfare and Healthcare are similarly digitised. A flippant facetious attitude isn’t going to protect us from cyber attacks.
@Patrick Kearns: Such ignorance on how data is stored and accessed. Take Pulse for example the minute records are being looked up had a high rate the connection is terminated and locked. Not just speed but volume. That is after getting through the security measures which you do either.
The amount of monitoring on traffic on such services is huge. Imagine you have a private road and suddenly you see 1000 trucks on it and you can simply block the road, that is what you do. Or you see a car using it way more than anybody else you stop the car and then find out what they are at.
@Gary: Dail bar?
The one in the Dáil? ;-)
@Deborah Behan: Re your last point: that can’t be done under the new European data protection legislation GDPR, unless they storage company agree to abide by European regulations. So this will either be illegal or the storage company have agree to adhere to forthcoming EU rules. I guess it is the latter.
Roll out the usual suspects from State and semi State bodies assuring us that this simply could not happen in Ireland because we are smarter than smart in protecting our ‘systems’.
@John Campbell: nope calling bull, no government takes lightly the threat of cybercrime anywhere. All they or anyone else can do is try to react quickly to any new threat when it occurs.
Even countries with far far greater resources than Ireland cannot mitigate the risk. You’re barking up the wrong tree if you’re blaming governments for cybercrime.
Cybersecurity/Cybercrime is a self fulfilling prophecy. It’s a small community driving wealth on both sides of the equation…..
Why are medical records so valuable?
Morning all. Good weekend?
Im in bits..thats for free
It is no cyber-criminals or darkweb looking for our personal data. It is multibillion international companies – insurance brokers, banks or shops who pay for that. Hackers are only middlemen. Why not to point real criminals here ??
Start using blockchain tech
40 euros eh? Hmm new dryer, would i get 10 takers. Who do I talk to?
The password is mam and dads house name or 1956
That all 40 euro? tight B#stards on the dark web
American Social security are not exactly difficult to get.
…..
have your say