Phikwe AIDs Rate Puzzles Researchers

CALISTUS KOLANTSHO
Correspondent | Monday June 22, 2009 00:00

He was bold and sincere that Selebi-Phikwe continues to lead with the highest HIV prevalence rate in Botswana at 26.5 percent and a high incidence rate of 4.7percent.

The results were recently established by the Botswana HIV/AIDS Impact Survey III (BIAS III). According to BIAS II, Selebi-Phikwe had a prevalence rate of 23 percent.

Myengwa asserts that the most affected group is females in the age group between 25 and 29 years at 40.6 percent in contrast with men in the same group at 13.6percent.

He believes that females are infected at a relatively high rate in Selebi-Phikwe, 'because they are unemployed and they end up sleeping with men without condoms in need of money without even knowing the status of those men'.

He points out that men who have money call the shots and usually they have many partners at the same time.

'We are thinking of conducting a study to try and find out what it is about Selebi-Phikwe that is causing the virus to spread at this rate. We cannot say it is because it is a mining town. Other mining towns such as Jwaneng are not showing the same problems,' he observes.

Myengwa said another section of the society that is adversely affected is widows. This could be because they lost their partners due to HIV related illnesses.

He says that the prevalence rate of Selebi-Phikwe is above that of the whole country.

Myengwa believes that lack of information might have something to do with the high incidence of HIV. He says that the high prevalence rate does not mean that the spread of the virus has increased, rather the figures reflect the combined effect of old and new infections. Before the introduction of ARVs people were dying, but today people are living longer because they are taking ARVs, Myengwa says. His main worry is that the high HIV incidence rate shows that people are getting new infections. 'With the massive education that people are given about HIV/AIDS, we expect less numbers to get infected in future. We always encourage people to test but only 56.4 percent of the entire population has tested. Almost half of Batswana do not know their status,' he laments.

He says that one of the questions that were asked during the survey was to find out the number of people who had tested in the past 12 months and only 41.2 percent had tested.

He adds that it was surprising to find that there are still some people who cannot identify HIV prevention methods. He went on to admit that it was hard to reach out to some religious groups, which could be practicing rituals that could spread the virus.

There is however, light at the end of the tunnel as the incidence rate among young people has gone down and 78.4 percent were now using condoms. Myengwa explained that before Selebi-Phikwe hosted the World AIDS Day in December last year, his office conducted a study in the district to measure the knowledge among people concerning HIV/AIDS and at the end of the year they will conduct another study to assess the situation.

He advises sexually active people to change their behaviour 'because it is the only way that can solve the problem'.

Thobane Morake of Tebelopele Centre in Selebi-Phikwe says men have shown interest in circumcision and they want to know if it can be used to prevent getting HIV.

Morake says that circumcised men should continue using condoms.

Morake points out that they are trying to close the testing gap between men and women. 'We still see individuals' coming to test but couple testing is still a concern. We want to see more couples testing,' he said.

Morake believes that there is a need to motivate Selebi-Phikwe youth so that they can also fight the scourge by staying away from activities that could make them vulnerable.

Morake's office educates the community about the prevention of HIV and services that are provided, especially in Tswapong farms where the area has mobile populations and the infection rate is high.