Males dominate Sowa Town
Patricia Edwin | Friday September 5, 2014 15:16
It was the first day of the two-day “New Directions in Global Health” workshop hosted in the soda ash mining town by United States of America (USA) Embassy, DMSAC and MISA Botswana that started on September 3.
Maitlhamako explained that things in Sowa are different than in other places in the country simply because Sowa town is more like a work camp.
He said the population of Sowa township was 3, 454 being 1, 840 males and 1, 614 females, while at the management camp there were 121 males and 23 females.
He as such the total male population in Sowa was 1, 961 while there were 1, 637 females which is a difference of 324, with males leading in population.
One of the peculiarities of Sowa Town was that basically there were no home-based care programmes.
“Most people come here to work and so when they get sick they go home, you will not find weddings here because people go home to do those things. And even though we have a cemetery we have buried one or two people there,” he said.
He said Sowa Town according to the BAIS III, had a HIV prevalence rate of 25. 4 percent while in the latest study, BAIS IV the rate went down to 19.8 percent.
Maitlhamako, however, said there could be many factors contributing to the reduced prevalent rate.
“People might celebrate but there are many factors that could have contributed to that. Like I said, earlier, when people are sick they go to their villages as Sowa is a working town.
“Or maybe there is population growth and that could also be a factor or the numbers have actually gone down or people have died,” he added.
According to Maitlhamako, in BAIS IV Sowa Town came after Selibe-Phikwe, which was at 26 percent and before Francistown, which was at 23.1 percent.
He further said that of the people who are on ARV Therapy in Sowa, 185 are males, 338 females, which means despite their small numbers in Sowa, females are still hard hit than their male counterparts.
On Sexually Transmitted Infections Maitlhamako said that their statistics showed that in the 2013/14 period, 79 males and 190 females were infected.
He added that they have 21 registered orphans that the government is taking care of.
“All our clients are on the coupon system,” he said.