30 Nov 2021

As the world commemorates World Aids Day today amidst a devastating COVID-19 pandemic, there are an estimated 38 million people worldwide who live with the virus.

From the time despite it was discovered in 1984, the disease has killed more than 35 million people, to occupy a top spot among the world’s most disparaging pandemics in humanity’s history.

Coming closer home, a Joint United Nations Programme report on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) last year, estimated that more than 300 000 people in Botswana were living with HIV.

With an adult HIV prevalence rate of about 20 per cent Botswana has the fourth highest HIV prevalence rate in the world, after South Africa, Lesotho and Eswatini in that order, with more than one in five of the adult population aged 15-49 years living with the virus.

However, the country has demonstrated strong commitment in responding to the epidemic and has become an exemplar within Sub-Saharan Africa, as it adopted various strategies to combat the disease, said National Health and Promotion Agency (NAPHA) principal information education and communications officer, Mr Oageng Moseki.

He said the country had steadily improved over the years beginning 2000 when it recorded a peak prevalence rate of 26.3 per cent.

This much progress was particularly notable among the youth.

Running a country with a youthful population constituting more than two thirds (70 per cent) of the total, and most of who are aged below 24, the government had to commit to a systematic and holistic implementation and support of HIV and AIDS programmes targeting youth, he said.

By December 2020 only 6.49 per cent, (approximately 27 728) young people were with HIV, he said.

The bonus came with a notable decline in prevalence among the adult population since 2010 whose

However there is growing concern over the increasing number of young people aged 15-24 who are getting infected every-year.

Up to a third of new annual infections (about 8800) comprise these young people, with adolescent girls and young women recording the highest infection rates. But why are the figures skewed towards the females?

It is because of the fact that that they are simply young and impressionable; Many are desperate for money and vulnerable to transactional sex and peer pressure.

Add stigma and discrimination, as well as harmful social and gender norms and you have a sinister mix of circumstances, said Mr Moseki.

But Botswana would not give up on its young people. Government continued to design programmes for equipping and empowering young people with knowledge about HIV//AIDS, said Mr Moseki.

NHAPA was supporting some of these youth-specific programmes.

They included Wise Up, a multimedia programme that disseminating HIV messages through social media and radio; Youth Counseling on Air (YOCA), which as the name suggests provides counseling to youth via radio; and the DREAMS television programme.

“One notable framework that promises further good results is championed by the First Lady, Ms Neo Masisi, in her role as UNAIDS Special Ambassador for the Empowerment and Engagement of young people,” he said.

The framework, he said, provided for advocacy meaningful engagement of young people in the response to HIV and even as it converged with the unfolding COVID-19 pandemic.

Indeed SARS COV-2 took the momentum off many of these programmes as it drastically curtailed movement, thus prevented campaigns targeting the youth.

However, increased usage of electronic and social media provided much needed access to them, he said. Mnr Moseki noted NHAPA was worried by the impact of COVID-19 on national efforts to eliminate the spread of HIV by 2030, and urged the public to ensure further transmission or re-infection did not happen.

“The agency is of the view that lessons learnt from fighting HIV can also be used to fight the spread of COVID-19.

We also acknowledge that both HIV and COVID-19 have had a negative impact on our society both economically, socially and otherwise,” he said. Mr Moseki emphasised the need to fully empower the youth to set the direction for HIV response and lessen young people’s vulnerability. ENDS