31 May 2016

Bobirwa Sub District Council chairperson says the sub district has managed to increase the number of nurses trained and days for the prescription of the antiretroviral therapy.

Speaking during the opening of the sub council session recently, Mr Moribame said the health personnel in the sub district did that in order to meet the recommendations of the World Health Organisation (WHO) which calls for earlier treatment of HIV.

He said evidence from the recommendations indicates that antiretroviral therapy dispensed earlier would help people with the virus to live longer, healthier and substantially reduce the risk of transmitting HIV to others.

Mr Moribame also councillor for Molalatau said as such Botswana was reacting to the recommendation made by WHO to provide medication to patients irrespective of their level of CD4 count to all children under five years, all pregnant and breastfeeding mothers with HIV as well as HIV positive partners where one partner in the relationship was uninfected.

The councillor told his colleagues that the organisation’s recommendation made in 2013 also cover all people with HIV with active tuberculosis or with hepatitis B disease that they also receive ARV earlier.

He said to mitigate this extra workload, the sub district has positioned itself to accommodate the tasks.
The councillor however expressed disappointment about the high number of dropouts of students in the schools.

“During the last quarter the sub district registered 70 dropouts consisting of 18 boys and 52 girls in our secondary schools with the most hard hit areas being  Tsetsebye and Motlhasedi Junior Secondary Schools ”, he said.
Of the 52 girls, 21 have been confirmed to be due to pregnancy and there were no dropouts registered at primary schools. Ends