Botswana stuns the world with HIV strategy

This comes a few weeks after the country was ranked the friendliest country to people living with HIV/AIDS, by a March 1 survey published by Afrobarometer, a Pan-African non-partisan research network, which ranked Botswana first among 33 countries surveyed. In the most recent report, Botswana topped the world, beating even the most developed countries. The report shows that Botswana, a middle income status country with HIV infection rates of up to 25 percent of the adult population, has moved ahead of other countries — both Western nations and the economically disadvantaged — in tackling the AIDS epidemic.

The United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS has called on countries to strive to ensure that 90 percent of their citizens know their HIV status and that 90 percent are treated with ant-retroviral therapy to achieve 90 percent viral suppression. However the report says Botswana is exceeding those goals, well ahead of a 2020 deadline.