Botswana Ups Ante In HIV Treatment
Ian Khama | Monday June 6, 2016 15:37
Our relentless efforts to contain an epidemic that threatened to cause deaths in over a third of our population required unprecedented political, scientific and development partner support. The epidemic has also placed unrelenting demands on our health system, stretching our healthcare workers, health facilities and hospitals beyond limits.
As a country we have made great strides in our National HIV response. We were the first country to launch a public Prevention of Mother To Child Transmission Programme (PMTCT) and anti-retroviral programme, the first country to implement routine HIV and viral load testing, the first country to use optimised treatment regimens, and now recently one of the first countries to be close to reaching the UNAIDS 90-90-90 Targets (90% of all HIV patients diagnosed, 90% of all HIV patients diagnosed placed on treatment, and 90% of these patients with complete viral suppression). The good news I bring you today is that as we launch the New HIV “Treat All” Strategy, Botswana is again on the path to becoming the first country in Africa to gain epidemiologic control of HIV. What is even more important is that by taking this bold step forward, we may be able to save more than 118,000 people from being infected by HIV and prevent more than 54,000 HIV deaths by 2030. If we are successful with early treatment for all HIV positive patients - regardless of their immune status - we will gain an even more important goal: Preventing anyone who is infected with HIV from becoming ill from HIV related conditions and suffering from this dreadful disease. In this way, launching the New HIV “Treat All” Strategy today marks one of the most important milestones for Botswana in the fight against HIV and AIDS.
The launching of this New HIV “Treat All” Strategy today moves us closer to achieving epidemiologic control and strengthening our health care system to deliver the highest quality of care to prevent our children and young people from having to carry fighting HIV for the rest of their lives. It is important to note that it is the youth who are now suffering from the highest infection rates in our country, and it is the youth, that we must do all we can, to prevent them from being infected. It is time to educate our young people about the benefits of annual HIV testing, behaviour change, and HIV combination prevention. We must avail the latest scientific advances in the arsenal against HIV so that HIV infection does not hinder our youth from realising their dreams. The investment that we are making in the New HIV “Treat All” Strategy today is an investment in ensuring a healthy and disease free future for all Batswana – young and old. As a truly caring nation, health remains our priority, as only a healthy nation can bear the responsibilities of sustaining and expanding our development goals in a rapidly changing global community. Today we are also faced with many other health challenges and emerging issues, such as climate change with consequences on our health, drought, food security and emerging and re-emerging infectious conditions such as Ebola, Zika virus and Yellow Fever. As our population ages we are also faced with managing the rise of non-communicable diseases.
All these underscore the importance of our resolve to maintain a healthy nation. We move forward today with the confidence of our previous achievements in health and a clear conviction that our investment will pay off as we lift our nation out of the era of disease and onto the last lap of our journey to ending AIDS. It is for all of us to move our nation forward in this regard. Botswana has served an important role as a Global leader in the Global HIV Response, always proactively adopting and adapting treatment recommendations from the World Health Organisation(WHO), the global custodian of public health, to best respond to the HIV pandemic. I am reliably informed that there were instances when HIV recommendations from WHO were based upon some of the progressive interventions our clinical teams instituted, which generated important evidence that transformed global HIV management, when many affected countries were hesitant to do so. The same applies to findings from HIV clinical trials conducted in Botswana as they have added to global knowledge on this subject matter. Botswana is fortunate to have achieved so much against HIV.
Almost all our health facilities are providing antiretroviral drugs. The country has embarked on a “task shifting” and “task sharing” initiative that has seen our nurses trained in antiretroviral drug prescribing and dispensing. Our laboratory systems are being strengthened to ensure that reagents and other commodities are in place to support treatment and care. Still, we must be prepared for some possible hick-ups along the way, as we plan to initiate over 100,000 people on ART in the next few years.
We must work together to overcome any barriers to deliver high quality medical care. We must work together to see the implementation of early initiation of ART become a reality. To do this, we also look to the continued support of all our Partners including the US Government, PEPFAR, Office of the Global AIDS Coordinator, The European Union, The Global Fund, UN Partners, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and many others.
* Khama’s speech at Treat All HIV Strategy in Oodi on Friday