05 Jun 2022

Chobe District is doing well in the Prevention of Mother to Child Transmission (PMTCT) programme.

Principal development officer, Ms Nobuhle Mbusi, said this when presenting the District Development Committee (DDC) report during a full council meeting revcently.

Ms Mbusi said PMTCT had been doing well with no babies testing HIV positive except for one who was routinely tested and found HIV positive at four months during the fourth quarter; January to March.

She explained that the mother, who resided in Francistown, was a defaulter.

On Antiretroviral Therapy (ARV), Ms Mbusi said the district recorded an increase of 0.16 per enrolment in the fourth quarter. Additionally, she said the district had a 100 per cent rollout of ARV in all health facilities with the exception of Weighbridge Clinic which had been converted to a COVID-19 centre.

Ms Mbusi also told the full council meeting that 23 teenage pregnancies were registered in the district in the fourth quarter.

She said all the teenagers tested HIV negative and their ages ranged from 16-19 years.

She said in the fourth quarter, the district recorded a decrease of 9.2 per cent in the number of sexually transmitted infections (STIs).

Ms Mbusi said the district continued with health talks on the importance of safe sex.

Regarding the Youth Development Fund, Ms Mbusi said priority areas for funding were eco-tourism, agro-tourism, small stock, food production, agricultural value chains, health, food processing, environment, energy and business sustainability as well as digitisation and innovation initiatives.

She said while the Ministry of Youth, Gender, Sport and Culture continued to collect loan repayments, there was a decline in the third quarter compared to the second quarter.

Ms Mbusi explained that the district quarterly target was P35 000, but only P11 000 was collected in the fourth quarter.

She said all the youth who were eligible for payment had  been reminded with letters. One beneficiary had completed loan repayment while others were still struggling to pay their loans during the quarter review.

On the utilisation of environmental and cultural resources, Ms Mbusi said 50 permits amounting to P50 000 were issued although the number was below the 200 target.

She attributed the decline to harvesters collecting resources without permits and projects struggling due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

She, however, noted that the Department of Forestry and Range Resources continued with forest patrols, strict enforcing of the law and educating customers on the importance of obtaining permits.

Ms Mbusi said there were 444 licensed tourism facilities within Chobe District as compared to 445 in the third quarter due to the closure of one business.

She said the number of rooms in Chobe stood at 1 413 and the number of beds was at 3 279 with the occupancy rate of 13.7 per cent in January, 18.7 per cent in February and 26.7 per cent in March.

She elaborated that the facilities have a total of 1 197 employees of which 1 141 were citizens and 49 foreign nationals. Ends