The gate of Mityana Prison, an hour east of Kampala, is guarded by a single khaki-clad officer with a rifle. As prisons go, it's not large, housing just 107 inmates.

Zaini Kizire, 28, is one of two HIV-positive prisoners here. Sitting with a group of female inmates, all wearing beige smocks, untailored except for sleeves, she folds her body into the smallest space possible on the concrete floor.

Asked what they know about AIDS, no one replies. Then Kizire says: "First, you get tested, then retested, then they do a CD4 count, then you take two tabs, one white and one yellow."

Her understanding of HIV/AIDS isn't technical or epidemiological, but Kizire is one of the few prisoners with even a basic grasp of how the disease works.

In one of the men's cells, measuring five by five meters (16 by 16 feet) and holding about 20 inmates, an older man says AIDS is a disease that affects the young and the aged, that you catch it through sex or sharing sharp objects like razors, and there wasn't a cure.

Another prisoner, wearing a faded Nokia t-shirt, spoke up after a few minutes: "AIDS is a biological weapon. The only solution is that the physicians who manufactured it be kind and find medicine."

In the next cell, similarly small and with just as little natural light, it was the inmates who asked the questions. "If someone has not been tested, what should he do?" asked one. "If I have the disease and my wife has it as well, will our child have it?"

Kizire and the other HIV-positive inmate make a trip to a local hospital once a month to collect their anti-retroviral drugs (ARVs), as upcountry prisons have no health facilities. The hospital is 1.5 km (1 mile) away and the prison has no form of transportation for the inmates. She fears the day when she's too ill to walk.

LIVING ON ARVS

In Luzira Prison on the outskirts of Kampala, the situation is different. Luzira houses 25 percent of Uganda's 27,000 prisoners, and at least 300 are HIV-positive, although most inmates have not been tested.

Here there is a medical centre, Murchison Bay, within the prison compound that distributes ARVs and the prophylaxis Septrin (which helps prevent opportunistic infections, though it isn't always effective.).

Unlike many African prison systems, Uganda's recognises the threat posed by AIDS. "These walls are temporary," says Michael Kyomya, the medical superintendent at Murchison Bay. "Prison can be an incubator for infection, and it will spread to the community."

Though Kyomya and his staff try to serve the vast needs of the prisoners and the community - who also visit Murchison Bay as a referral clinic - he says they are grossly underfunded. Their budget of 130.5 million shillings ($77,000) per annum is about half what a centre their size usually receives.

"The UPS (Ugandan Prison Service) is working hard to scale up provisions of care," said Megan Rock, protection coordinator for the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in Uganda. "There's a lot of good will and mobilization of external partners."

Currently, the ICRC is working in active partnership with the UPS and the health ministry on a joint pilot project to address the problems of malaria, tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS.

Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni was one of the first African leaders to acknowledge the HIV/AIDS pandemic sweeping the continent, and made tackling it a priority.

The country's prevalence has dropped to about 8 percent from around 15 percent in the early 1990s. But critics say rates are on the up again due to the government's decision to shift emphasis in AIDS education from condoms to abstinence.

Condoms are not available to prisoners, despite acknowledgement from officials that some of the inmates were having sex.

"Although (homosexuality) is not culturally accepted, one cannot deny that it is there," says Mary Caddu, prison commissioner for support services. "If infected prisoners don't get information, they will infect others through homosexuality."

Charles Bagenda, a prisoner in charge of AIDS-control activities in Luzira's Upper Prison maximum security unit, says the ratio of AIDS counsellors to prisoners was one to 160.

"Living with HIV in prison is different than outside," says Bagenda. "People who are incarcerated are alienated from their families, so all the support comes from within the system."

One of Bagenda's duties includes running a support group for HIV-positive prisoners called the "Post Test Club," which meets on Fridays.

At a recent meeting, prisoners in yellow uniforms with thin black stripes complained about the scarcity of Septrin and a lack of proper nutrition, blankets, and other supplies. They also shared practical tips for living on ARVs in prison.

"We watch when the Muslims begin to pray to mark time to take our ARVs," said one prisoner, who declined to give his name. He later added: "The club gives us courage and we don't worry because you know you are not alone suffering. We get confidence and it gives us a go-ahead to tell our friends about the disease."

But Zaini Kizire, the HIV-positive female inmate at Mityana Prison, has no such support system. Recalling how it was when she first entered prison, she said: "The other ladies feared me, didn't want me to touch the cups and plates."

With her next trial date approaching, she doesn't know which would be worse - to serve more time with the disease or try to cope in the outside world. At least in prison, the government gives her ARVs once a month.

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