The AIDS Support Organization

The AIDS Support Organization

TASO was started in 1987 by a group of medical workers who had witnessed how badly patients showing signs of Acquired Immuno Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) were being treated in the wards of the Mulago Hospital in Kampala. At first, it was a small, informal group of people meeting to talk about HIV and AIDS and grow into an organisation. It became one of the major HIV and AIDS care organisations in Uganda. When TASO started, Uganda was recovering from a war that brought the current government to power. TASO was founded to provide comfort to patients who were being discriminated against and sometimes abandoned by relatives to die within the hospital compound. As the number of people coming for comfort to this small group grew, counseling became a necessary service to keep those seeking comfort. By 2008, TASO had grown into one of the largest indigenous HIV and AIDS services organisation in Uganda.