09 Dec 2021

High prevalence of HIV infections among young people has necessitated the need to popularise the use of technology for HIV prevention interventions among youths, Vice Chancellor of Limkokwing University of Creative Technology (LUCT) Botswana, Dr Raphael Dingalo has said.

Launching the Southern African Development Community (SADC) technology-based HIV prevention programme for youth in Gaborone on December 8, Dr Dingalo said that from the research conducted by ACHAP, 25 young people between ages 10-19 got infected with HIV every week in Botswana.

He, therefore, noted that the statistics provided have prompted for technology based intervention programme for youth where Limkokwing University and NAPHA were key players

The project, according to Dr Dingalo, would run concurrently on Limkokwing campuses in Botswana, Eswatini, and Lesotho, adding the three countries had a high prevalence of HIV infections among the 15 to 24 years age group.

He also noted that the pandemic was still distinctly gendered, with a greater toll on young women than on men.

To foster HIV prevention methods and entrepreneurship through creative arts, Dr Dingalo said NAPHA and the university campuses would be capacitated to use new and emerging information and communication technology to deliver HIV prevention messages to the primary target, adolescents and young people aged 15 to 24 years.

He further stated that one of the project objectives would include the scaling up and adoption of multimedia and technology based prevention programmes targeting adolescent girls and young women and their sexual partners.

“Capacitating young people to engage with the digital forum for making a living would also be one of the project’s objectives,” he said.

For his part, NAPHA Acting Deputy National Coordinator, Mr Moagi Kenosi said HIV infections were generally levelling down across the population spectrum in the Sub-Saharan region.

However, he said adolescent girls and young women continued to be disproportionally affected by new HIV infections.

“This unfortunate occurrence calls on all of us to come up with more targeted interventions using a peer-approach method which is what this project is all about,” he said.

In addition, Mr Kenosi said variances in prevalence between males and females were most marked between 20 to 24 year olds, which was over four times as high in females than in males.

He indicated that prevalence patterns showed a likelihood of relationships between girls aged 15 to 24 with older men.

Mr Kenosi also stated that there were heightened challenges for girls and women in such relationships regarding condom use, negotiation of safer sex and overall power dynamics in age-disparate relationships.

He said the challenges and gaps in HIV and AIDS responses targeting young people required fixed interventions.

“The proposed project is one innovation intervention which would allow young people to access information and services to prevent HIV infections,” he said. ENDS