06 Jun 2022

The recently released fifth Botswana AIDS  Impact Survey (BAIS V) preliminary results reveal that significant progress has been made in the fight  against  HIV  and  AIDS.

“There  is progress made  especially  among  young  people whose HIV prevalence has now declined from 7.9 per cent in 2013 to 3.4 per cent in 2021,” Vice President Slumber  Tsogwane has said.

In his opening remarks to the National AIDS and Health Promotion Council in Gaborone yesterday, he said the results also showed that the burden of  HIV had now shifted from young people to the adult population whose prevalence indicated a slight increase from 18.5 per cent in 2013 to 20.8 per cent in 2021.

 “This does not necessarily reflect a worsening situation, but rather indicates that the HIV infected population is aging and now lives longer due to the effectiveness of the current HIV treatment,” explained Mr Tsogwane.

 He said treatment and viral suppression global targets for the 2016-2020 had been achieved as well as those for 2021–2025 ahead of schedule.  

Quoting further from the results, Mr Tsogwane said 95.1 per cent of the population that had tested for HIV knew their status while 98 per cent of those who had tested positive had enrolled for treatment with  97.9 per cent of them virally suppressed.

Botswana, he said, continued to enjoy unwavering support from its development partners adding that  the United States President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief in Botswana (PEPFAR/Botswana) provided over P56  million for various HIV programmes in the current  financial year.  

 The  vice president said Global Fund had also injected a further P240 million into HIV and Tuberculosis programmes for 2022-2024 revealing that government had received a total of over P74 million in grants from the facility for COVID-19 since 2020.

Mr Tsogwane further said the Court of Appeal judgment that decriminalised same-sex relations was going to alter the HIV service delivery landscape.

“The judgment paves the way for provision of some HIV prevention services which were hitherto inaccessible to key populations,” he said.

He said in keeping  with its  mandate, National AIDS and Health Promotion Agency (NAHPA) would develop a fully integrated HIV  and Non Communicable Disease (NCD) service package.

HIV and NCD programmes and services would no longer  be  delivered in parallel but in an integrated  fashion, the vice president said. Ends