We arrived at the Entebbe airport ready to begin the last leg of our journey: Uganda, home to the first reported cases of HIV in Africa and to the world famous HIV prevention success story through the use of the ABC model. Uganda’s response to the devastating HIV/AIDS epidemic in a resource-constrained setting has been acclaimed as a global model. The focus on Uganda resulted from the country's 1995 announcement of the declining HIV sero-prevalence rates. The announcement brought a lot of international focus on Uganda's approaches and interventions especially on the adopted World Health Organization (WHO) HIV prevention approach: ABC (A=Abstinence, B=Being faithful to one partner, C=Condom use). However, during the 2000 national strategic planning exercise, it was acknowledged that the declining trends could not be attributed to either a single intervention or a single stakeholder, but rather were a result of concerted efforts by multiple partners from various sectors. We had come to Uganda to see for ourselves.

As soon as we arrived we were transported to the Uganda Virus Research Institute, housed in brightly painted barrack-style buildings on the shores of Lake Victoria, where we were met by Ambassador Jimmy Kolker and members of the U.S. in-country team for a tour and luncheon briefing. During the briefing we heard from the Ministry of Health, the Ugandan AIDS Commission, CDC-Uganda, and USAID-Uganda. Ambassador Kolker reviewed the U.S. involvement to date. USAID has been the largest donor to Uganda’s response in the last 12 years with funding of more than $134 million. Since 1996, USAID has given direct assistance to the two largest non-governmental organizations in Uganda: The AIDS Information Center (AIC), the first organization in Africa to provide voluntary counseling and testing, and The AIDS Support Organization (TASO), the first indigenous AIDS organization in Africa. The collaboration between CDC and USAID has resulted in a five-year $38 million project to develop comprehensive, integrated HIV/AIDS model districts. The mission is also supporting a five-year, $30-million project to provide food assistance to 60,000 individuals living with HIV/AIDS.