OPENING REMARKS BY MINISTER KGATHI AT TODAY’S DISSEMINATION SEMINAR OF BAIS IV RESULTS It is indeed an honour and privilege for me to be officially opening the discussion forum of the dissemination of the 4th Botswana AIDS Impact Survey (BAIS IV 2013). As some of you may be aware, these surveys are conducted every 4 years as an evaluation of our performance in responding to the HIV epidemic. This dissemination is held under the theme “Call for action, beyond the statistics”, which offers a call on experts and every Motswana to utilize the findings and make a sustainable impact in areas of prevention, treatment, mitigation and development of policies to address emerging issues. The results of the survey talks specifically to measurement of HIV Prevalence, the rate of new infection (incidence), predisposing behaviors such as none condom use, Multiple and Concurrent partnerships. The overall goal of this dissemination is to provide a forum for sharing findings of BAIS IV survey, observe the trends and work towards developing robust interventions. I am informed that as part of today’s deliberations, in-depth presentations will be made by our professionals especially those from the University of Botswana. Let us ensure that as program officers here present, we derive maximum benefit from interacting with such experts. I would like to urge all of you here to participate and deliberate on issues to better inform the next agenda in the form of strategic plans. This dissemination has come at the right time when the country is working towards development of NDP 11. As stated in the theme of this dissemination, all planners and policy makers have a task of utilizing the results for planning and programming. The results will also be used in other strategic plans locally and internationally to organization and bodies to which Botswana subscribes to such as MDGs. Ladies and gentlemen, the rate of new infections has declined from 1.45% during BAIS III in 2008 to 1.35% in BAIS IV. Although this might sound like an insignificant drop, any tip off towards zero with regard to incidence shows a move in the right direction. As experts deliberate on incidence, the focus must be how we can expedite a further reduction to move towards achieving zero new infections by 2016. We need to investigate and interrogate all factors that pre-dispose us to new infections. Given that in BAIS III the prevalence was estimated at 17.6% and in BAIS IV it’s estimated at 18.5%, one can say that HIV prevalence is stabilizing. This increase must be expected as the government of Botswana is keeping people alive through programs such as Antiretroviral therefore averting deaths. It is worrisome though that Selibe-Phikwe still remains the highest. As a way of concluding, I want to thank the media fraternity for having played an important role in this survey since inception in 2011. I therefore call upon our friends in the media to continuously find a way of closing the gap between speculation and facts by meeting and interacting with all these experts, learn from them, initiate debates on topical issues, generate stories and build alliances to inform their future reporting on HIV and AIDS. I strongly believe that the expertise available in this conference will indeed steer our nation in the right direction. Therefore, I trust that this conference will come up with pragmatic recommendations which can be implemented for the betterment of this nation. I thank you for the courtesy of your attention and thus declare the Dissemination Seminar of BIAS IV Results officially opened.
Posted on: Tue, 17 Jun 2014 13:32:29 +0000
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