22 Aug 2016

Palapye District Health Management Team has registered a total of 1 477 cases of sexually transmitted infections  (STIs) between April and June.

District Multi-sectoral AIDS coordinator Mr Callistus Jackalas informed police officers during the North Central Division workshop on prevention of new HIV infections on Friday that the trend is  worrisome because it shows that people do not use condoms .

He said of the 1477 infected people, 1011 are females.

He said it is upon individuals to help the government combat the HIV/AIDS scourge, adding  if one has STIs chances of contracting HIV/AIDS are high.

He said HIV/AIDS prevalence in Palapye stands at 17.1 per cent, urging all stakeholders to join hands to prevent the spread of HIV.

Mr Jackalas further said Palapye DHMT so far enrolled a total of 13092 on ARV treatment, adding that more people will be enrolled as per the Treat All strategy that the Ministry of Health is embarking on.

He said DHMT also registered 72 cases of teenage pregnancies and 25 HIV related deaths during the quarter ending June.

Further, DHMT has registered 55 Tuberculosis (TB) cases as well as five cases of Multi Resistant Drug TB at Kediretswe, Lerala, Lecheng and Lotsane clinics.

For his part, senior assistant council secretary for Palapye Administrative Authority Mr Lucky Maoto said HIV/AIDS is a serious challenge facing the country because it does not only affect people socially but also impacts negatively on the economy of the country.

He therefore implored everybody to join hands with the government to arrest the situation saying HIV/AIDS affects productivity and service delivery.

Mr Maoto said  government spends a lot of money on ARV treatment as well as HIV prevention strategies but new infections are still high.

For his part, Palapye DHMT representative Mr Thato Bakanye urged all to stay away from multiple concurrent partnerships as they lead to the spread of HIV/AIDS.

He said when men and women have more than one partner at the same time, people become linked together in sexual networks.

“The more people have more than one partner the bigger and denser the networks becomes,” he said. Ends