The pork business in Uganda has been shaken after a research study conducted at Makerere University revealed that pork consumers are substantially exposed to HIV/AIDS treatment drugs according to Dr. Ritah Nakato.
Dr. Nakato is a researcher at the School of Biomedical Sciences at Makerere University, College of Health Science and warns of the emergence of drug-resistant strains of HIV/AIDS in Uganda because of the indirect exposure of pork consumers to suboptimal doses of HIV treatment drugs or ARVs.
The results of the study published in the official journal of the International Federation for Tropical Medicine show that ARVs are intentional adulterants of farm pig feeds and are a source of residues in pork that is consumed by a number of communities in Uganda.
After a long research activity at the department of pharmacology and therapeutics, Makerere University, the researchers established two study sites in Teso and Wambizzi abattoirs in Lira and Kampala districts respectively.
The sites were purposively selected to represent peri-urban and urban settings of Uganda but the findings were quite similar. Most of the positive samples had higher concentrations of HIV drug residues generally according to Dr. Nakato.
Though there are no specific figures for drug-resistant HIV strains arising from such exposure in Uganda as no survey has been done yet.
