Background Globally, 35.3 million people were living with HIV at the end of 2012. Sub-Saharan Africa remains most severely affected, with nearly 1 in every 20 adults living with HIV and accounting for 71% of the people living with HIV worldwide. Uganda has sustained some impressive response to HIV/AIDS epidemic grounded in a multi-sectoral approach coordinated by Uganda AIDS Commission. The response to stop and control HIV/AIDS has yielded many useful strategies and yet mistakes and missed opportunities. HIV/AIDS continues to be a major socio-economic challenge and is among the leading causes of morbidity and mortality given the increasing new infections due to status non-disclosure among sexual networks. Feedback from the Helpline indicate that those infected fear to disclose their HIV status to their sexual partners for many reasons thus the Helpline comes in to fill this gap through telephone counseling with timely responses

Methods Data from Telephone calls received from those fearing to disclose their HIV status to their sexual partners was reviewed. A random selection of feedback responses was sampled to find out how the Helpline was helping the community deal to with the problem

Results Sampled 400 positive feed backs from community members who had benefited from Helpline counseling revealed that timely telephone counseling empowered them to disclose their HIV status to their sexual partners because of the prevention benefits discussed with Helpline counselors. The helpline empowered and educated callers about HIV and other STIs status disclosure benefits especially prevention of new infections

Conclusion The results of this study reveal that Helpline counseling can be a helpful resource in HIV/STIs prevention by empowering those infected to disclose their status with their sexual partners to protect and prevent new infections.

Disclosure No significant relationships.