Mokobeng woman finally accesses ARVs

SELEBI-PHIKWE:  A 39-year old HIV positive woman, Galebotse Tlou, can finally celebrate life, now that she has finally been enrolled for ARVs after being denied the treatment for lack of a Botswana identity card. During the five years of her struggle for enrolment, Tlou's six month-old baby - who was also denied treatment because of its mother's ID dilemma, died of HIV-related complications.

This woman, a native of Mokobeng in Tswapong South, was diagnosed with the virus in 2007. Since then, her efforts to enroll for treatment failed because she did not have an ID to prove that she was a Motswana despite the fact that she was born in Botswana. Tlou's mother was a South African who attained Botswana citizenship after marrying her father around 1954.