Ugandans pay high price for government’s failure to prosecute Global Fund thieves

Rachael Nalubega, 10, sits on her mother’s lap near the entrance into one of the children’s wards at Uganda’s top medical facility, Mulago National Referral Hospital. Nalubega’s eyes are motionless and unblinking. The crowded ward is enveloped in a nonstop noise of wailing children on rickety sickbeds. 

Poor Nalubega is too weak to join in the wailing. An intravenous needle has been inserted into her little hand to allow liquid from a plastic bag hanging on the metallic frame of the sick bed to drip into one of her veins and possibly keep her alive. Her mother stares at her head, occasionally touching it gently. She is apparently desperate.