'Sugar daddies', 'small houses' drive new HIV infections
Sharon Mathala | Thursday May 15, 2014 13:19
Adult men involved in intergenerational sexual activities are colloquially referred to as 'sugar daddies' while their female peers are referred to as 'sugar mommies'.
'Small houses' are a colloquial reference to relationships between married men and younger mistresses.At a Monday workshop, local HIV/AIDS officials said multiple concurrent partners, intergenerational and adolescent sex, as well as commercial sex work had emerged as key drivers of the epidemic.
Two decades ago, when the disease began ballooning into an epidemic in Botswana, health officials blamed the lack of education and absence of anti-retroviral therapy, condoms and the easy transmission of the disease from mother to child.National AIDS Coordinating Agency (NACA) principal officer, Nonofo Leteane, said government and its private and civic sector partners had largely tackled the initial drivers.
The latest reports peg Prevention of Mother to Child Transmission (PMTCT) uptake at 96 percent, Mother to Child Transmission at less than 2.6 percent, ARV uptake at 87 percent, helping the prevalence rate to rise to 18.5 percent last year from 17.6 percent in 2008.
The number of new HIV cases or HIV incident rate was also down in 2013 at 1.35 from 1.45 percent in 2008.'The key drivers of the HIV epidemic are multiple concurrent partnerships, followed by alcohol abuse,' Leteane said.'Low levels of male circumcision and lack of knowledge of one's status are other drivers,' he said.He said that although treatment is available in most parts of the country with up to 315-dispensary clinics countrywide, positive behavioural change remains elusive.
Leteane also stated that another worrying factor, which is contributing to new HIV infections, is sexual activities among teenagers.
'The percentage of people aged between 15 and 24 years reported to be having sexual intercourse before the age of 15 years is at four percent,' he said.He said that between the ages of 10 and 64 years, 70.2 percent reported having had an HIV test at least once in 2013, up from 56 percent in 2008.
At least 63.7 percent of the population aged between 15 and 49 years, reported having an HIV test in the 12 months preceding the 2013 survey.Meanwhile, Kweneng East District AIDS Coordinator, Theresa Makati, said the priority issues in her jurisdiction are high pregnancy rates among women on Highly Active Antirational Therapy (HAART).
She said that low levels of HIV testing and high rates of teenage pregnancy are also trouble spots in the area. Makati revealed that Kweneng East had an estimated HIV/AIDS prevalence rate of 19 percent in 2013, compared to 16.7 percent in 2010. The prevalence rate refers to the number of people living with HIV/AIDS at any given time.
The AIDS coordinator said that the most affected age group in this regard was the 25 to 49 years segment, with a prevalence of 37.3 percent or more than one in three.
'There was an increase in the number of Sexually Transmitted Infections in the district across the four quarters of last year,' she said, adding that, 'The district registered a total of 1,326 male and 1,539 female STIs in the last quarter of 2013'.