By Edward Katumba
Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever (Hebrews 13:8).
Facts
By 2024, 40.8 million people globally were living with HIV, including an estimated 39.4 million adults aged 15 years and above and 1.4 million children aged 0–14 years. Women and girls accounted for 53 per cent of all people living with HIV, highlighting the disproportionate burden borne by females.
According to the UNAIDS Fact Sheet 2025, 1.3 million people became newly infected with HIV in 2024, while 630,000 people died from AIDS-related illnesses. Since the beginning of the epidemic, 91.4 million people have been infected with HIV and 44.1 million have died from AIDS-related illnesses. Meanwhile, 31.6 million people were accessing antiretroviral therapy in 2024.
In Uganda, the first cases of HIV/AIDS were identified in the 1980s along the shores of Lake Victoria. Since then, the disease has continued to affect the country, claiming between 1.5 and 2 million lives through HIV/AIDS-related illnesses.
Almost 45 years later, Uganda ranks fifth among countries with the highest HIV burden. The estimated number of people living with HIV stood at 1.4 million in 2022. Although HIV prevalence has declined over the years, an estimated 52,000 new infections are still recorded annually, translating into about 1,000 new infections every week. Alarmingly, 70 per cent of new HIV infections among young people occur among adolescent girls.
A call to pray
While praying for people suffering from HIV/AIDS, I felt led to pray specifically for the discovery of a cure for the disease.
As I continued in prayer, I felt a burden to rally fellow believers to join in this call, petitioning the Lord for a breakthrough in finding a cure or more effective treatment for this devastating disease.
As we pray, we can stand on the promises of Scripture:
2 Chronicles 7:14: “If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land.”
Exodus 15:23–25: “Then Moses cried out to the Lord, and the Lord showed him a piece of wood. He threw it into the water, and the water became fit to drink.”
Numbers 21:6–10: “So, Moses made a bronze snake and put it up on a pole. Then when anyone was bitten by a snake and looked at the bronze snake, they lived.”
Psalm 107 declares that when people cried to the Lord in their trouble, He delivered them from their distress. He sent out His word and healed them.
Philippians 4:6 encourages believers not to be anxious about anything, but in every situation to present their requests to God through prayer and thanksgiving.
Matthew 7:7–8 urges us to ask, seek and knock, with the assurance that those who ask receive, those who seek find, and to those who knock the door will be opened.
Mark 11:22 simply reminds us to have faith in God.
Isaiah 38:2–5 tells of King Hezekiah, who turned his face to the wall and prayed to the Lord. God heard his prayer, saw his tears and added fifteen years to his life.
These scriptures, among many others, remind us that God hears the prayers of His people and responds according to His will and mercy.
With this burden and call, which I believe the Lord has placed on my heart, I appeal to the Body of Christ worldwide to petition God for a breakthrough in the discovery of a cure or medicine for HIV/AIDS.
I strongly believe that just as God showed mercy to His people in generations past, He can also show mercy in our time and grant a cure in this generation.
The writer is a pastor at Bible Gospel Church
