Alcohol use, intimate partner violence (IPV) and HIV infection are associated, but few programmes and interventions have addressed their synergistic relationship or been evaluated for effectiveness and acceptability. This is a critical gap in populations with high rates of alcohol use, HIV and IPV, such as Uganda's fishing communities. This study examined drinking norms, barriers and facilitators to engagement in a risk reduction programme, and ideas for tailoring. Results showed that alcohol use is common in fishing villages. While men and women drink, gendered notions of femininity deem alcohol largely unacceptable for women. Plastic sachets of liquor were the most common alcoholic drink. Participants did not understand the definition of 'hazardous drinking', but recognised connections between drinking, violence and sexual risk-taking. The idea of an alcohol, IPV and HIV risk reduction intervention was supported, but barriers need to be addressed, including how best to help those uninterested in reducing their drinking, addressing normalisation of drinking and how best to inform those who truly need intervention. Intervention to people living with HIV around the time of diagnosis and treatment may be warranted. Study findings highlight the potential to integrate alcohol and IPV reduction programmes into an HIV service provision.

Background In East Africa, where landlines are used by 1% of the population and access to the internet is limited, owning a cell phone is rapidly becoming essential for acquiring information and resources. Our analysis illuminates the perils and potential promise of mobile phones with implications for future interventions to promote the health of adolescents and young adults (AYAs) and to prevent HIV infection. Objective The aim of this study is to describe the current state of AYAs’ phone use in the region and trace out the implications for mobile health interventions. Methods We identified 2 trading centers that were representative of southern Uganda in terms of key demographics, proportion of cell phone ownership, and community HIV prevalence. We stratified the sample of potential informants by age group (15-19 years and 20-24 years), gender, and phone ownership and randomly sampled 31 key informant interview participants within these categories. In addition, we conducted 24 ethnographic participant observations among AYAs in the communities of study. Results AYA frequently reported barriers to using their phones, such as difficulty accessing electricity. Nearly all AYAs used mobile phones to participate in the local economy and communicate with sexual partners. Phone use was frequently a point of contention between sexual partners, with many AYAs reporting that their sexual partners associated phone use with infidelity. Few AYAs reported using their phones for health-related purposes, with most getting health information in person from health workers. However, most AYAs reported an instance when they used their phone in an emergency, with childbirth-related emergencies being the most common. Finally, most AYAs reported that they would like to use their phones for health purposes and specifically stated that they would like to use their mobile phones to access current HIV prevention information. Conclusions This study demonstrates how mobile phones are related to income-generating practices in the region and communication with sexual partners but not access to health and HIV information. Our analysis offers some explanation for our previous study, which suggested an association between mobile phone ownership, having multiple sexual partners, and HIV risk. Mobile phones have untapped potential to serve as tools for health promotion and HIV prevention.

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Two conflicting masculine norms of reputation and respectability coexisted in the lives of boys and men depending on the reference group (male peers vs. community and family). Both types of masculinities endorsed violence against women by placing masculinity in a position of power. n Reputational masculine norms ("cool masculinity") included becoming sexually active by age 18, being attracted to women, and having high sexual stamina while respectable masculinity ("responsible masculinity") was marked by a man's ability to find a female partner, get married, and have children. n Boys and young men who participated in a gendertransformative program expressed gender-equitable beliefs and attitudes, suggesting the effectiveness of the gender-transformative programming.

Tomato yellow leaf curl is prevalent in tomato growing districts of Uganda. The disease is known to be spread by a whitefly (Bemisia tabaci) in a persistent manner. Some of its symptoms are leaf curl, marginal leaf yellowing, malformation of fruits, stunting and dieback (in case of primary infection at early seedling stage), so the disease is economically important. Therefore, this study delved into the relationship between the disease and the vector in selected agro-ecosystems in the Country. The influence of weather and seasonality on the incidence of the disease and the vector was also investigated through a series of field experiments across a period of two years. New methods for trapping the vector were developed and applied to estimate its populations on individual plants and in the overall field environment. The findings were that whereas incidence of the disease is low at seedling stage, the whitefly population is highest at this stage. It was also found that the vector population is favoured by drought, so rainy conditions reduced it tremendously.

Research and development are two but inseparable aspects that have to be taken into consideration for any country´s development agenda to be successful. However, in many less developed countries, the uptake of research in development policy formulation and implementation is inadequate. This paper discusses some of the factors underlying the failure of research to influence policy formulation and implementation in these countries. Starting with a brief discussion of the common paradigmatic and epistemological traditions in research, the paper discusses the challenges involved in development research. Thereafter, it makes a case for a mixed methods approach that is deliberately linked to felt development needs.

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During the summer of 2003, leaf curl symptoms were observed in tomato (Lycopersicon esculentum) plantings in the Iganga District of Uganda. Begomoviral infection was suspected. Twelve symptomatic samples were collected. Begomoviral DNA was extracted and amplified using polymerase chain reaction (PCR) with the begomovirus-specific degenerate primer pair PAL1v1978/PAR1c715 (4). The expected 1.4-kb PCR products were obtained from 11 of 12 samples. The 1.4-kb PCR product of one of the samples was cloned and sequenced. Based on the sequence of the 1.4-kb DNA product, specific primers were designed to complete the DNA-A sequence. The DNA-A consisted of 2,747 nucleotides (GenBank Accession No. DQ127170) and was found to contain seven predicted open reading frames (ORFs V1, V2, C1, C2, C3, C4, and C5). A BLAST analysis was conducted with geminivirus sequences available in the GenBank database at the National Center for Biotechnology Information (Bethesda, MD), and MegAlign (DNASTAR, Inc, Madison, WI) software was used for further comparisons. The DNA-A sequence of the virus associated with leaf curl of tomato from Uganda showed less than 79% sequence identity with cassava mosaic viruses from Uganda (GenBank/EMBL Accession Nos. AF126800, AF126802, AF126804, AF126806, and Z83257), the only begomoviruses from the country so far in the public domain. Highest sequence identity (83%) was with Tomato leaf curl Mayotte virus from Dembeni, Mayotte, Comoros Islands (ToLCYTV-[Dem], EMBL Accession No. AJ865341). Pairwise comparison with ToLCYTV-[Dem] showed 60, 88, 91, 82, 84, 86, and 80% sequence identities in the intergenic region, V2, V1, C1, C2, C3, and C4 ORFs, respectively. Only low sequence identities (ranging from 71 to 82%) were obtained with other tomato bego-moviruses reported from Africa (GenBank/EMBL Accession Nos. AF261885, AJ865337-AJ865340, AY044137-AY044139, AY502934, AY502936, AY594174, AY736854, and U73498). There was no evidence for the presence of DNA-B or DNA-beta using PCR with the DNA-B specific primer pairs DNABLC1/DNABLV2 and DNABLC2/DNABLV2 (2) and the DNA-beta primer pair Beta01/Beta02 (1), respectively. Detection of possible recombination was by RDP2 software (3) using DNA-A sequences of begomoviruses from Uganda and tomato begomoviruses from Africa. The DNA-A was found to contain a small recombinant fragment from ToLCYTV-[Dem] in the 411 to 969 nucleotide position with 92% sequence identity. Based on DNA-A sequence comparisons, the tomato leaf curl virus from Uganda most likely constitutes a distinct new begomovirus. References: (1) R. W. Briddon et al. Mol. Biotechnol. 20:315, 2002. (2) S. K. Green et al. Plant Dis. 85:1286, 2001. (3) D. P. Martin et al. Bioinformatics 21:260, 2005. (4) M. R. Rojas et al. Plant Dis.77:340, 1993.