The Eastern and Southern Africa training workshop on sexually transmitted infections has placed Uganda's President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni on top of Africa's leaders in the struggle to fight AIDS in the region.

The workshop held from October 11 to November 6, 1998, in Chikankata Health Centre in Mazabuka, 131 km South of Lusaka City, recognised President Museveni as one of the African leaders who immediately told the world about the existence of the AIDS pandemic in Uganda, as soon as the first patients were known.

Mr. Festus Bazira, co-ordinator of the Voluntary Service Trust Team (VOLSET), based in Nakaseke Town, Luwero District was one of the two representatives from Uganda.  The other was Josephus Musisi, the co-ordinator of Mukono District Network of people living with HIV/AIDS (MUDINET).

Other participants came from Tanzania, Namibia, Zambia, and Kenya.

The workshop, sponsored by the Regional AIDS Training Network (RATN), based in Nairobi, Kenya, aimed at discussing sexually transmitted infections and their preventative measures.  Other topics included: perspective medical aspects of HIV/AIDS, principles of counseling, home care process, community counseling, HIV testing and its implications, the role of nutrition in home care for people with AIDS, and nursing care in hospitals and peer teaching.