Death can outdo ABCs of prevention

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.