Time to kill the tiger

From that tragic day in Selebi-Phikwe in 1985 when the first AIDS case was diagnosed in Botswana, the country has become world renowned for its aggressive response to an existential crisis of historic proportions. As the globe and Botswana mark World AIDS Day today, we remember the fear, confusion, stigma, hate, acceptance, determination and the battle the country has waged against the disease since those early days. We salute the many heroes and heroines, many of them late, who defied stigmas and spoke out publicly about their HIV statuses, encouraging many others hiding in the shadows.

We remember the millions of hours public, private and NGO experts spent brainstorming on strategy, which produced the network of initiatives and policies, many of them groundbreaking, that today support the HIV/AIDS response.