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.
