Road transport is the dominant mode of transport in Uganda and accounts for over 90% of cargo freight and passenger movement. In the last decade, greater Kampala metropolitan area has contributed to half of all road crashes in Uganda, with 22% of fatal crashes occurring in the city. However, in 2016 this figure fell to 44% of all crashes and to 19% of all fatalities occurring in the city. The police report attributes this high crash rate mainly to reckless driving and congestion. (United Nations, 2018). Accidents in Uganda have claimed a great number of people’s lives, left others helpless and disabled with severe injuries. According to Uganda Revenue Authority (URA), Uganda has about 600,000 registered vehicles 60% of which ply the roads in Kampala alone. The high number of vehicles coupled with the annual average population growth rate of 3% (UBOS, 2018) has led to the sprouting of Trading Centers along the roads in Kampala. This has led to an increase in the number of accidents as cited in a World Health Organisation report on road safety in 2018 that listed Uganda as one of the countries with the highest traffic death rates estimated at 29 car deaths per 100,000 population (WHO, 2018). This research was conducted to assess the impact of speed reduction measures on improving road safety at Trading Centers in Kampala. An observation schedule was used to establish the extent to which these speed reduction measures exist along Trading Centers in Kampala and 44% was representative of the extent to which these measures exist. Estimating the level of compliance to these measures was done by analyzing speeds for 100 vehicles at each of the trading centers where the speed reduction measures were present. The Accident Severity Index was then calculated and compared to the percentage adherence and it was noted that in places where the adherence was high, the number of vehicle accidents recorded was lower than that recorded at those trading centers with low adherence or compliance to speed reduction measures. The frequency of accidents with and without these measures was done by collecting secondary data from police stations across Kampala. This data showed that trading centers without speed reduction measures have a higher number of accidents than those where these measures are present. Key Words: Speed Reduction measures, Trading Centers, Accidents, Road Safety

Back in the 1980s there was calamity with more than 30% of Ugandans had contracted the HIV virus. About 2012 with the presence of ARVs, the Uganda `AIDS Commission observed a reduction in the number of HIV positive Ugandans from 1.4 million to 1.3 million. The study conducted a cross-sectional, observational study of 118 HIV-infected patients who were receiving antiretroviral therapy at TASO Jinja Regional Referral Hospital (Jinja). The intervention measured the prevalence of viral suppression during an open prospective HIV Rural Clinical Cohort (RCC) in Busoga region. Chi-square tests (2) were used to compare categorical data, and Student’s t test was used to compare continuous variables. P values of .05 were considered to be statistically significant. Logistic regression models assessed variables associated with undetectable viral load (1400 copies/ mL). The study revealed that access to the ARVs in the rural areas of the country is still a problem, most of the people succumb to death simply because they are out of reach, the insufficient ARVs are found at government national and regional referrals yet most people far away from town find it difficult to acquire them. Fear of disclosure and stress with the associated nutrition related effects of lack of balanced diet, having multiple sexual partners, unprotected sex, language barriers during counseling session were found to be common among the youths.

Diarrhea is the second leading cause of morbidity and mortality among children under five following acute respiratory infection and is also an important cause of malnutrition. Diarrheal diseases can be caused by numerous pathogens and transmitted through multiple vehicles due to poor hygiene practices. Persons living in developing countries with poor access to safe water, sanitation or hygiene infrastructure have increased risk of exposure to viral, bacterial and parasitic pathogens that can cause diarrheal diseases. The study aimed to assess the knowledge, attitude and practices towards prevention and management of malnutrition due to diarrhea in children 0 to 59 months in Kibisi village, Luwero district. The study focused on the prevention and management of diarrhea as a measure for malnutrition. The study was a cross sectional study design by knowledge, attitude and practice (KAP) questionnaire involving 200 mothers /caregivers. Data was collected by employing pre-tested interviewer administered knowledge, attitude and practice questionnaire. Interviews were done with randomly selected mothers /caregivers. Important findings of this study included the following; health centers were the main source of information about diarrheal management and prevention, more than half of respondents (78%) believed that diarrhea is caused by teething, only 57.5% respondents knew the right dilution of 1 sachet of ORS in 1 liter of safe water and only 36 % of the caregivers sought for medical attention whenever their children had diarrhea. The study recommends more funding to be provided to health centers to improve patient education and counselling programs through purchasing of materials needed, employing more health workers and facilitating outreaches. The study further recommends that more research should be conducted to discover the barriers faced by caregivers in the management and prevention of diarrhea as caregivers were knowledgeable and had good attitudes towards use of Oral Rehydration Solution but its use was still poor.

Objectives: This study aimed at exploring the perspectives of people living with HIV at Masaka regional referral hospital considering the factors that facilitate adherence, hindrances to adherence and the coping strategies adopted to improve adherence to ART among HIV patients. Methods: A descriptive cross-sectional study design utilizing in-depth personal interviews as well as focus group discussions and key informant interviews were used to collect data. Respondents were selected purposively and sample size determined following the principle of data saturation. Individual face-to-face in-depth interviews were conducted with twentythree people living with HIV, key informant interviews with two health workers, and two focus group discussions with people living with HIV/AIDS. Data were analyzed and presented into themes. Separation from spouse, inability to accept the results, side effects and disconnection from family members were the experiences of people living with HIV six months after initiation on ART. Findings: Factors such as education level, the kind of job they did, support from the social networks, the amount of money they received monthly and their interaction with the healthy workers enabled them to adhere on ART. However, lack of food, access to transport, drug related side effects, stigma and discrimination had a negative impact on their adherence. Encouraging clients to engage in income generating activities, social support system empowerment, engagement in adherence counseling and improvement in the working relationship with the clients were some of the coping mechanisms adopted to promote and improve adherence among patients at the hospital. Conclusion: More emphasis should be put on deriving ways to promote sustained adherence on ART among people living with HIV with social support prioritized.

Anemia remains a public health problem globally and most especially in developing countries. Iron and folic acid supplementation is recommended by the Ministry of Health, Uganda as a preventative measure against anemia among pregnant women. However despite such efforts to control anemia especially during pregnancy, this public health problem has continued to persist leading to increased morbidity and mortality. There has been limited study on the knowledge, attitudes and practices regarding Iron and Folic acid Supplementation among pregnant women in the study area. The aim of this study was to determine the knowledge, attitudes and practices regarding Iron and Folic acid Supplementation among pregnant women attending antenatal care in Kira Municipality health centers. A health facility based cross sectional study was carried out in three different health centers in Kira Municipality. A total of 105 pregnant women seeking Antenatal Care were selected by systematic random sampling and data on socio-demographic characteristics, knowledge, attitudes and practices regarding IFAS was collected using an interviewer administered and structured questionnaire. Qualitative data was collected by conducting in-depth key informant interviews with the health workers. Quantitative data was then entered into SPSS (statistical package of social science) version 26 and analyzed. Results: of the 105 pregnant women that were interviewed, majority(58.1%) were between 18-25 years. 82.9% of them reported having heard about iron and folic acid supplementation during pregnancy with health workers being the main source of information for 60% of the women, 56.2% reported having heard about anemia and 58.1% knew that they were at a risk of anemia. Most of them (90.5%) agreed to take iron and folic acid supplements for their future pregnancies. 61.9% of them were taking these supplements for their current pregnancy. Major constraints that were faced by the pregnant women included forgetfulness and stock-outs at the health facility. Conclusion and recommendations: This study found that majority of the women had heard about IFAS during pregnancy, however half of the women started taking these supplements after the first month of pregnancy yet supplementation is supposed to begin prior to conception as per the MoH, Uganda guidelines. There is need to increase awareness and positive perception about the importance of these supplements to the mother and her child and counsel women about the urgent need to start supplementation as early as possible. Gestational age of current pregnancy was significantly associated with intake of these supplements hence there is need to counsel encourage women to continue taking these supplements regardless of gestational age.

Yaka metering system includes a Customer interface unit (CIU) that is easily accessible on the user premises. Upon any payment, a 20-digit token MUST be entered to have units loaded into the meter. The process of entering a 20-digit token number is a challenge to users as it requires their physical presence to enter the 20-digits. Where one requires remote entry of the tokens to activate the units bought, it is currently impossible as tokens require physical presence at the CIU. To bring convenience to the users, we have developed a GSM based a Yaka-meter activation system that doesn‟t require user to input the 20-digit token number on CIUs. The meter ensures that upon any payment, the 20 digit token is automatically loaded into the meter through a mobile platform.

Kasese District is partially a rich ecosystem with enormous ecological and natural values such as agriculture soils. Estimation of crop yields is of great essence to food security. Lake Katwe subcounty is a salty area and has been dominated by salt mining rather than agriculture. This is mostly attached to the local claim that these soils do not favour crop growing and as a result of the people lacking sufficient knowledge of the salt levels as one moves away from the lake and the crops that can be grown in such area putting into consideration its salinity levels. Remote sensing is a valuable tool in decision making and management thus can appropriately be used to study soil salinity around this area with validation of soil samples. This study aimed at assessing the impact of soil salinity on crop growing with a basis on remote sensing technology and field data. In analysis, multitemporal acquired from three different years 1987, 1995 and 2015 were used. Firstly, preprocessing was done for all images to convert digital values to reflectance values while carrying out the necessary corrections such as the atmospheric correction. Thereafter several salinity indices such Normalized Difference Salt Index, Salinity Index in comparison with the vegetation Index known as the Normalized Difference Index were computed and then analyzed accordingly. The electricity conductivity of the different measurements of the field data collected in January 2020 and the necessary laboratory measurements undertaken was used as ground truth data. Basing on the results obtained from the comparison of NDVI, NDSI, SI 1 and field measurements, it was observed that as time elapses with other factors like the sunny weather and farming methods used around the area in Lake Katwe subcounty, the spatial extent of the areas being affected by soil salinity are expanding. Conclusively, this approach is considered a very effective method and technology for assessing the impact of soil salinity on crop growing and thus can be applied to other area with similar or slightly varying characteristics.

The study was conducted in Kiboga district and the main objective was to assess rainfall variability and its impacts on crop farmers. The study analyzed historical rainfall trends from 1988 to 2018 as well as how crop farmers in the study area adapt to the impacts of rainfall variability. The rainfall trends and variations were analyzed using Mann Kendall trend test while farmers’ response was analyzed using SPSS. Contrary to the null hypothesis, the study found a significant trend in rainfall for the last 30 years especially in the MAM seasonal rainfall. The major impact of rainfall variability was low crop yields as reported by 84.6% of all the respondents. The major adaptation strategies practiced by farmers include; soil and water conservation methods, change of planting dates and increased use of organic manure, whereas more than half of the respondents were not practicing any adaptation options. The study recommends that agricultural extension services for example trainings about modern farming practices and climate smart agriculture should be provided to the farmers in order for them to improve and implement better adaptation options to lessen the impacts of rainfall variability. This study will also be of assistance to better inform farmers as well as agricultural policy makers in studying the variability and trends of rainfall in order to characterize the climatology of the area. Keywords: Rainfall Variability, Rainfall Trend, Crop Farmers, Kiboga

We live in a technological era with an increase of information accessible through hard copy or soft copy and there are over 18000 visually impaired children below the age of thirteen in Uganda alone. Most of these children do not have access to reading material like the non-visually impaired and most material available don‟t have braille translated versions. Our project aims at easing access to already available information in different languages and various formats by translating it to grade 1 and grade 2 braille. The purpose of this project is to develop a web application, Text-Braille Converter that converts English documents to grade 1 and grade 2 braille, native language documents to grade 1 braille and audios to grade 1 and grade 2 braille. Overall, this project study provides the visually impaired community with more diverse ways of converting already available information in various formats to a braille format they can utilize.