Makgato launches 90-90-90 initiative
Lesedi Mkhutshwa | Thursday February 2, 2017 15:12
She said this during the launch of the greater Francistown Mayor’s 90-90-90 HIV initiative, aimed at improving the health of cities by scaling up HIV testing, treatment and viral suppression by 2020.
The launch of the mayor’s initiative towards ending the Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) epidemic in Francistown follows the Treat All strategy that was introduced months back.
Makgato said that President Ian Khama launched Treat All Strategy last year as an initiative that enables all HIV positive people to start treatment as soon as diagnosed. “We plan to commit ourselves through the Treat All Strategy by testing as many people as we can and put all those found to be positive on treatment right away for viral suppression,” she said.
She indicated that the initiative would help in reducing the number of new infections, decrease Tuberculosis (TB) cases and annual AIDS deaths.
She said controlling HIV as early as year 2020, is a sure road towards eliminating AIDS by 2030, as findings indicate that with a little bit of effort this could be achieved.
“If we play our part, thousands of our people will be saved from HIV infection and thousands more from death. Already the results from the Botswana Combination Prevention Project Study of 2016, reveals that 83.3% of individuals who participated in the study knew their status, 87.4% were receiving treatment and 96.5% were virally suppressed,” she said.
The 90-90-90 approach by 2020 aim to have 90% of all people living with HIV knowing their status, 90% of all people diagnosed with HIV infection receiving sustained Anti-Retroviral Treatment (ART) and 90% of all people receiving ART will have viral suppression.
She revealed that HIV epidemic is not over and the challenges remain such as high numbers of people living with HIV who do not know their status, low male circumcision levels, low adherence to Antiretroviral (ARV) treatment are still there.
She added that some of the challenges consist of TB/HIV co-infection, multi drug resistance, alcohol and substance abuse and general behavioural decadence.
“The government provide different initiatives such as Prevention of Mother To Child Transmission (PMTCT), free supply of condoms but people do not make use of them,” she said.
Makgato was concerned about men who continue to shun HIV testing and other health services, saying the 90-90-90 initiative should provide a greater opportunity for men to test.
On other issues Makgato cautioned attendants about the dangers of lifestyle diseases and urged all to adhere to good eating habits to avoid non-communicable diseases such as high blood pressure, cancer, diabetes and others.
She said they should practice healthy lifestyles such as physical exercise and avoiding drugs and excessive alcohol intake. For her part the city Mayor Sylvia Muzila said Francistown is the second leading city in HIV prevalence rate at 24.6% after Selibe Phikwe, with 27.5%.
She said that the 90-90-90 initiative commits to zero stigma and discrimination by the year 2020 and urged people to get tested.
“Lets make sure that by the end of this year everyone knows his/her status. It is also the duty of parents to make their children get tested but, they should not force them to reveal their status,” she said.