BEN CURTIS / AP PHOTO / GLOW IMAGESProtesters against antigay laws in Nairobi, Kenya BEN CURTIS / AP PHOTO / GLOW IMAGES
A research project on HIV treatment at Makerere University, in Uganda, was suspended after a team member was arrested when he tried to recruit homosexuals to participate in the study. Similar cases have become commonplace in Uganda, where life imprisonment of homosexuals and criminal conviction of defenders of gay rights recently became law. The criminalization of homosexuality in African countries, including Ethiopia, Nigeria, Senegal and Uganda, has hindered the work of scientists studying methods to contain the transmission of HIV. “There are many examples of studies being suspended due to these laws,” said Stefan Baral to Nature. An epidemiologist at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, he has been studying the transmission of HIV through sexual relations between men in Africa for years. Although AIDS has spread in Africa among groups of all types, the United Nations Joint Program on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) identifies men having sexual relations with other men as having a higher risk of HIV infection. Due to cultural reasons, however, many homosexuals in Africa do not have access to information about how to avoid contagion or how to obtain treatment.
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