05 Sep 2014

Botswana must continue to invest in evidence based high impact interventions and advocate for effective health policies to realise the goal of zero new infections.

This was said by the acting United States of America (USA) ambassador to Botswana, Mr Michael Murphy during a two-day workshop on new directions in global health in Sowa Town on September 3.

He said through the new directions programme, the right things would be delivered at the right times, as the programme was packed with the evidence based interventions needed to reach the mandated target.

Mr Murphy said Botswana was one of the few countries where the HIV epidemic had passed the tipping point, where for every new person on treatment there was less than one person newly infected.

He noted that new infections had dropped to 71 per cent since 2001 and this was as a result of the country’s provision of free antiretroviral treatment to its citizens.

Although these figures indicated that there was a new direction to change the course of the epidemic, there was a long way to reach the target of zero new infections, he said.

The achievements, he said, were as a result of the Botswana government’s partnership with the USA global AIDS programme known as US President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR).

He said at the time the program was announced there were almost 10 000 new HIV infections daily with the epidemic expanding rapidly without being recognised globally.

Mr Murphy said through the power of partnerships with the host country, NGO’s and civil societies they were able to help more patients get access to antiretroviral treatment and prevent new infections.

Furthermore, he asserted that while the government of Botswana has made the lion’s share of the total investment necessary to fight the HIV/AIDS epidemic, the American investment in this joint effort overthe last ten years has totaled more than 700 million US dollars which is equivalent to six billion pula.

In addition to the drop of new infections by almost 71 per cent, the Prevention of Mother to Child Transmission (PMTCT) coverage has reached an impressive 97.5 per cent, he added.

The question and challenge now, he said, was how they plan to maintain these positive shifts, adding that achieving epidemic control would require delivering the right things in the right places at the right time.

Last year, he said his government together with the Ministry of Health and Harvard University launched a four year project called the Botswana Combination Prevention Project.

It was launched with the hope to determine whether coordinated and strengthened prevention methods including HIV testing and counseling, antiretroviral treatment, safe male circumcision as well as PMTCT when scaled up together at the community level could prevent the spread of the virus better than methods offered individually. ENDS