Chapter 3: Fighting Stigma and Discrimination as a Strategy for HIV/AIDS Prevention and Control

HIV and AIDS are currently regarded as the leading challenges to global development and world health. The pandemic has not only claimed millions of lives but continues to cause direct and indirect suffering among people everywhere. The management of its dynamics and magnitude has been further complicated by the stigma associated with HIV/AIDS and discrimination that disrupts most of the interventions aimed at mitigating the effects not only on individual health but also on socioeconomic life. Uganda’s recently registered successes in reducing the prevalence of HIV can be attributed partly to the efforts to address this issue and ability in enabling Ugandans to overcome stigma and discrimination through promotion of voluntary counseling, testing, and positive living (UNAIDS/WHO, 2004). It is, however, important to recognize that stigma and discrimination associated with disease are not new; both have existed throughout recorded history but have been exacerbated with the rise of the AIDS epidemic. Throughout this chapter, we use the term AIDS stigma to represent all types of HIV/AIDS-related stigma, discrimination, and prejudice.