29 Aug 2021

GABORONE - Religious organisations have to take the lead in ensuring the nation’s health as well as maintenance of peace and tranquility, Minister for Presidential Affairs, Governance and Public Administration Mr Kabo Morwaeng has said.

  “The health of the nation, its peace and tranquility sits with the church. The church must take its rightful position and come from taking the backseat and be the salt of the earth; be the light of the world,” said the minister, who was launching the month of prayer in Gaborone yesterday.

    He reminded his audience that religious organisations had become government’s critical partners in curbing the spread of HIV and AIDS through the Botswana Christian AIDS Intervention Programme at whose instigation the month of prayer was instituted 25 years ago. 

  Since then, Mr Morwaeng said,  the month had served as an opportunity to rally the nation to seek divine intervention against HIV/AIDS.

    The minister said while the country had realised numerous successes in the fight against HIV and AIDS, much still needed to be done for the disease to stop being a public health threat. 

Among the successes he mentioned reduction of HIV deaths and new infections; decline in mother-to-child HIV transmission and achievement of universal access to HIV treatment as well as the UNAIDS 90-90-90 fast track target “and having surpassed these targets, the country is now working towards achieving even higher targets of 95-95-95”.

Warning Batswana against complacency, Minister Morwaeng said the country needed to keep the momentum especially as some population groups remained at risk of getting infected such as homosexual men, sex workers, young people and people with disabilities.

 “In addition there is an estimated 370 000 people living with HIV; with 8 500 new HIV infections and 4 000 AIDS related deaths annually,” he said and called on people to avoid risky sexual practices. 

On the more urgent COVID-19 situation,  Mr Morwaeng said the disease had grossly affected the economy and social order, overwhelmed the health care system as well as caused death and suffering. 

“As at 20th August 2021 a total of 150 842 people had been infected with COVID-19. Tragically, 2 171 succumbed to the disease and associated complications in the same period,” he said. 

He pointed out that  government had come up with safety and prevention protocols in an attempt to save lives. 

Minister Morwaeng urged people to adhere to the protocols and ignore those who went about spreading misinformation about COVID-19 vaccines. 

“Be wary of loose tongues who are professors of fear. There is no government that can bring a vaccine or medicine that would annihilate its people. Let’s encourage people to take the vaccine and save lives. Above all, let’s sacrifice our personal liberties so we may defeat this monstrous disease. When the government set protocols, the idea was to save lives not to rule by rod and cause people top suffer. It is to protect people, to prevent the death of so many, nothing else,” he said. 

The minister warned that besides HIV/AIDS and COVID -19, the nation was faced with a growing burden of non-communicable diseases, which accounted for 46 per cent of all deaths in Botswana.    

“Our 2016 statistics show that of these deaths, 18 per cent were due to cardio-vascular diseases; seven per cent to cancer, four per cent to chronic respiratory diseases whilst six per cent were due to diabetes,” he said. 

He urged people to adopt safer lifestyles and habits to win against the diseases. ends