Kampala  - Servicemen in the Ugandan armed forces get infected with the deadly AIDS disease at a rate which is up to five times higher than that faced by the country's civilian population, according to government health officials. The increased AIDS infection rates among soldiers, policemen and prison staff are caused by an increase in commercial sex and interaction between members of the armed forces and civilians, the director general of the Uganda AIDS Commission (UAC), Dr David Kihumuro Apuuri, was quoted by The New Vision newspaper Friday as saying.

The mobility of servicemen and the stress of their jobs were also seen as factors. The leadership in Uganda's armed forces should incorporate programmes to stop the spread of the killer disease which affects servicemen at rates ranging from two to five times higher than that of the general population, Kihumuro said in addressing army, police and prisons commanders. Uganda has been one of the countries worst-affected by AIDS, losing about a million people to the disease since it was first diagnosed in the country during the early 1980s. Over one million people carry HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, and the health ministry estimates that nearly 500,000 of these have the disease. (dpa)