09 Dec 2019

Tati River hospital official says it is necessary to strengthen community engagement in response to HIV/AIDS and general health programmes.

Speaking during AIDS day commemoration in Francistown recently, Dr Dorcas Mompati undescored need to bring on board critical stakeholders to promote advocacy, accountability and ownership of interventions in place.

She said though there was reduction of new HIV infections from 13 000 in 2010 to 8 000 to date, a lot still needed to be done to reduce infections.

Dr Mompati said HIV/AIDS could not be fought without addressing issues of gender-based violence, saying it had a connection with the epidemic since most of those infected were victims of GBV.

She said, despite all the efforts put forth by government, Francistown continued to grapple with health issues such as high cases of teenage pregnancy, high Tuberculosis (TB) rate and low uptake of safe male circumcision. She, however, said despite all the challenges, the city had made strides in responding to HIV/AIDS campaign like the zero per cent of mother to child transmission, enrolment into TB programme and HIV testing amongst the TB patients that stood at 97.1 per cent.

She said there were other strategies implemented in the district by different stakeholders such as Tebelopele, African Comprehensive HIV/AIDS Partnerships (ACHAP), and Botswana Christian AIDS Intervention Programme (BOCAIP) by providing services to different cohorts in the community, adding that the city hasd also implemented the mayor’s 90-90-90 initiative, which contributed massively to the reduction of HIV/AIDS in the city.

Dr Mompati noted that government continued to show its commitment to end HIV by 2030 through the subscription to strategies like Treat All campaign  .

For her part, Ms Maipelo Mogatwane stated that violence was one of the main concern leading to a higher rate of HIVAIDS. “Abuse can lead to unsafe sex which results in the spread of HIVAIDS, STIs and other diseases,” she said.

“Economic abuse is the deadliest because some partners are into these relationships just because they depend on their partners for finances and those who depend on their partners for cash end up making unethical decisions in fear of being given a back by their partners.

 This results in forced unprotected sex leading to increased HIVAIDS rates”, Ms Mogatwane said. ENDS