01 Feb 2017

The Minister of Health and Wellness, Ms Dorcas Makgato, has commended Francistown mayor, Ms Sylvia Muzila, for finding it fit to launch the fast track action towards achieving the 90-90-90 targets by the year 2020.

Speaking at launch of the campaign on recently, Ms Makgato said people converged in the second city to search for various opportunities.

She said spearheading of the initiative by the mayor epitomised their resolve for a committed political leadership, which transcended from the head of state, his deputy,  all cabinet ministers and parliamentarians and councilors.

She said  although all the three 90s were important; the first 90 being diagnosing  90 per cent of all people with HIV, remained a critical entry  point  for the uptake of HIV related programmes, be it prevention, treatment, care or support.

Ms Makgato expressed her disappointment on men who lagged behind when it came to testing and uptake of other health services, saying that it was evident from both national and global evidence.

“Men please refrain from testing through your partners as that shows lack of responsibilities on the fight against the epidemic,” she added.

Furthermore, she encouraged all the stakeholders to join hands and support each other in the fight against HIV and AIDS

She discouraged people from having unprotected sex, buying prostitutes, alcohol and drug abuse, saying the behavior puts their lives in danger and those of their loved ones.

“The government is doing its best, therefore it is upon every individual to do their part, which is committing themselves to be responsible citizens,” she said.

Ms Makgato said the fight against the AIDS pandemic is slowly but surely showing better results as they are experiencing great reduction in number of new HIV Infections, large decrease in the number of Tuberculosis (TB) cases and great decrease in annual AIDS deaths, which is a sure road towards eliminating AIDS by 2030.

In addition, she urged people to practice healthy lifestyles and adopt good health practices such as healthy eating, physical exercise as well as undertaking periodic health screening for early diagnosis and treatment of non-communicable diseases, which are taking people's lives daily.

For her part, Ms Muzila encouraged people to cooperate and take part in the initiative in order to benefit the whole nation.

She said the 90-90-90, which means; 90 percent of people living with HIV knowing their status, 90 percent of people who know their HIV positive status were put on treatment and 90 percent of people on treatment have suppressed viral loads, can only be achieved if people take responsibility of their health and be tested.

Ms Muzila further said they are committed to this campaign as the city has been rated the second mostly affected by the pandemic, which means there is much to be done including behavioral change.

She said the target could be reached if people are ready to live a healthy lifestyle and are eager to see their standards of living improving, adding that the government spends a lot of money on the matter.

“The reduction of the new infections, stigma and discrimination and AIDS related deaths could help the government restore the crippled economy and invest in developments, which could also benefit everyone,” she added.

Meanwhile, she urged families to encourage other family members to test themselves and not bully them into revealing their status when they were  not ready.

The launch comes after the worldwide initiative of improving the health of the cities by scaling up HIV testing, treatment and viral suppression by 2020 which was launched by the world city mayors at Paris, France on December 2014. BOPA