Youth-friendly HIV services useless if unused—Lelatisitswe
Nnasaretha Kgamanyane | Tuesday March 14, 2023 06:00
Speaking at the Month of Youth Against AIDS commemoration at the Health ministry on Thursday, Lelatisitswe called on the youth to educate themselves on everything that involves their wellbeing and get support where they need it.
He said the commemoration allowed the nation to reflect on its HIV/AIDS prevention efforts, particularly young Batswana.
“The objectives of this year’s commemoration are to intensify efforts on HIV testing and counselling, to promote access to sexual reproductive health/HIV youth-friendly services and ultimately reduce any further HIV infections. Under the theme, 'Equalise: End Inequalities, End AIDS by 203O', our topic for this year is, ‘Increase in Availability, Quality and Sustainability of Services for HIV Prevention, Testing and Treatment’, he said. He further said Botswana exceeded all the 95‐95‐95 targets among adults living with HIV pointing out that it was a tremendous effort made by government, local civil society organisations and international development partners.
Youth-friendly interventions have been put in place that support HIV prevention and care amongst young people. He added that Botswana adopted various strategies since 2016, where some specifically targeted young people to align with the Ministry of Health (MoH) vision of a healthy nation. He also pointed out that the country rolled out HIV self-testing to support facility and community diagnostic testing, amongst other special population groups, also targeting Adolescent Girls and Young Women (AGYW) and their sexual partners in the comfort of their homes.
He also stated that other measures they had in place towards the elimination of HIV/AIDS included index partner testing where partners and children of people living with HIV are offered HIV testing in health facilities. Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis (PrEP) was introduced as a strategy to prevent HIV transmission to people most at risk of acquiring HIV and DREAMS (Determined, Resilient, Empowered, AIDS-free, Mentored and Safe) aimed at reducing rates of HIV among AGYW in the highest HIV-burdened countries, including Botswana.
“Equalising when it comes to HIV/AIDS calls for programming that intentionally includes key population groups. "Though the HIV/AIDS epidemic in Botswana is generalised with transmission occurring primarily in the general population, previous Behavioural Biological Surveillance Surveys (BBSS 1&2) pointed out that prevalence among key populations is higher than in the general population. “In addition to the huge gap that still exists in integrating key population programming into mainstream sexual reproductive health and HIV youth-friendly services, BIAS V results have brought to light that viral load suppression is lagging behind among females aged 15–24 years.
There is still a lot of work ahead of us to end the AIDS epidemic by 2030,” he said. Speaking during the panel discussion that day, Youth-Friendly Service nurse, Marang Mohurutshe said the youth goes to the clinics in numbers to access the services. He added that it was important for the service provider to understand the youth's mindset and know how to deal with them because they do not feel comfortable consulting with a hostile person.
He added that since times change and people no longer attend kgotla meetings, the only way to reach the youth was through different social media platforms because they are the platforms they mostly use. Other panellists applauded the government for its strive and achievements towards eliminating HIV by 2030 saying the country was doing very well in the fight against HIV/AIDS.