HIV Epidemiology and Prevention Programme

In rural Uganda, researchers track HIV infection across three large groups of people—a general population cohort, female sex workers, and fishing communities—while also measuring the growing burden of heart disease, diabetes, and other non-communicable diseases (NCDs) in the same populations. This matters because HIV prevention and treatment programmes have historically focused on infection alone, leaving a blind spot: people living longer with HIV now face elevated risks of NCDs, yet health systems in sub-Saharan Africa are rarely equipped to manage both conditions together. The programme’s hospital-based studies and long-running cohorts generate the data needed to understand how HIV and NCDs interact—for example, whether certain antiretroviral drugs increase cardiovascular risk, or how chronic inflammation from HIV accelerates metabolic disease. If the research succeeds, it could reshape how public health programmes are designed in low-resource settings. Instead of separate HIV and NCD clinics, integrated care pathways might emerge that screen for hypertension or diabetes alongside viral load checks. The cohorts also feed into international networks like the ALPHA Network and NCD Risk Factor Collaboration, meaning findings from these Ugandan communities will inform global disease burden estimates and policy recommendations for decades.