HIV is more likely to be contracted by people who are married or living together in Uganda than single or young people, a study has revealed.
The country's findings reveal a change in the pandemic's pattern of infection.
Since the onset of the HIV/AIDS pandemic in the 1980s, campaigns have focused on young people in casual relationships between 15 and 24 years old, who were thought to be more at risk from the disease than people in their thirties and forties in committed relationships.
The Uganda AIDS Commission March 2010 epidemic status report said: "There has been a shift in the epidemic from people in single casual relationships to those in long-term relationships.
"43 per cent of new HIV infections are among monogamous relationships while 64 per cent are among persons reporting multiple partnerships and their partners."
Dr Kihumuro Apuuli, the director general of the Uganda AIDS Commission, said: "In our studies four or five years ago, the main new infections were among [people aged] 20 to 25. But now there is a shift upwards and the most new infections are among people between 30 and 34 years, and 40 and 45 years."
The Uganda findings, funded by UNAIDS, concur with the UNAIDS 2009 epidemic report.
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