KAMPALA, October 14, 2026 – Uganda’s HIV/AIDS burden has stagnated, with 1.5 million adults still living with the virus, but the country is recording near-perfect treatment success among people who know their status.
This is according to preliminary results of the 2025 Uganda Population-based HIV Impact Assessment [UPHIA 2025], released on Thursday at the Uganda Media Centre by Health Minister Dr Chris Baryomunsi.
The Minister said HIV prevalence among adults aged 15 years and above stands at 5.9 percent, largely unchanged from 2020, with women bearing a higher burden at 7.3 percent compared to 4.1% among men.
The survey found that the biggest gap is no longer treatment, but testing, with about one in seven people living with HIV unaware of their status.
Once diagnosed, however, treatment outcomes are excellent. The assessment found that 99.1 percent of people who know their status are on treatment, while 96.5 percent of those on treatment have suppressed the virus, meaning they can live longer and do not transmit HIV sexually.
Baryomunsi said the government will now use the evidence to push services closer to communities through primary healthcare and integration with services for other chronic diseases such as hypertension and diabetes.
It is here that the global cooperative movement offers Uganda a ready-made community platform.
According to an ILO/ICA policy brief on HIV and cooperatives, cooperatives worldwide have been forced to respond to the epidemic because HIV can cause labour shortages, loan defaults and the loss of skilled workers.
In the Dominican Republic, insurance cooperative Coop-Seguros, owned by 40 cooperatives, removed HIV exclusion clauses from life insurance and introduced policies that provide partial payouts when a member falls sick with HIV.
For Uganda’s Savings and Credit Cooperative Organisations [SACCOs], where people living with HIV may face challenges accessing loans or benefits, the model offers a lesson in financial inclusion.
In Tanzania, the Kilimanjaro Native Cooperative Union [KNCU] used money from Fair Trade coffee sales to pay secondary school fees for children orphaned by AIDS through a seven-year scholarship programme.
Uganda’s coffee cooperatives in Masaka, Bugisu and Ankole face similar challenges and could consider replicating the model.
In Kenya, the National Cooperative Housing Union [NACHU] responded to deaths among its members in 2002 by creating an HIV workplace policy, producing awareness materials and supporting orphans in a context of widespread stigma.
With poor housing linked to increased HIV vulnerability, Ugandan housing cooperatives could draw lessons from the initiative.
In Vietnam, the Vietnam Cooperative Alliance works with the government to conduct regular HIV prevention workshops for cooperative members in rural areas.
The model demonstrates how Uganda’s 30,000+ agricultural cooperatives could use their village networks to mobilise people for HIV testing – the very gap identified by UPHIA 2025.
In Singapore, National Trade Union Congress Income, a cooperative insurer, became one of the first organisations to provide HIV exposure coverage for health workers such as doctors and nurses. Such a model could help protect Ugandan health workers.
In South Africa, the Soweto Home-Based Care Givers Cooperative, formed in 2001, provides nursing care, counselling, transport to hospital and food parcels to people living with HIV.
The cooperative has helped formalise women’s unpaid care work into jobs that support treatment adherence – a need in Uganda, where low viral suppression among young people aged 15-24 is linked to inadequate support.
Experts say Uganda’s Emyooga SACCOs, dairy cooperatives and farmer cooperatives are already trusted institutions in villages where health workers often struggle to reach communities.
If integrated into district HIV plans as education, savings safety-net and home-care providers, they could help identify the missing 15 percent who do not know their HIV status while also keeping them economically empowered.
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