Rev. Canon Gideon Byamugisha, a Ugandan Anglican priest born in 1959, who learned in 1991 that he was HIV positive. He was the first African priest to declare, publicly, that he himself was HIV positive, breaking one of the most important barriers in the struggle against HIV, that of stigma-induced silence. He is Canon of two cathedrals, one in Uganda and one in Zambia. He has helped to raise public awareness about the disease in a way that has brought distinction to religious and cultural communities in his own country, Uganda, across the African continent, and on a global level.
