Thato Chwaane
4 February 2008
A multidisciplinary team of researchers from the University of Botswana, together with their counterparts at the University of Pennsylvania has been granted an award of P12 million for five years to develop research capacity for the investigation of HIV/AIDS issues pertaining to adolescents.
At a launch held at UB last week, the Minister of Health, Professor Sheila Tlou, said the objective of the project was to develop a pool of researchers with the necessary skills to do research on the prevention of HIV/AIDS and to design group specific, age appropriate and culturally relevant effective intervention programs for adolescents in schools, churches and those living with HIV/AIDS.
She said the UB-UPenn Adolescent research program carried a lot of hope for the nation. Tlou said in the 26 years the world has been fighting HIV/AIDS, behavioural change has become the central strategy in HIV prevention. Hence she said this program and its focus on prevention comes at the right time when stakeholders in the fight against HIV/AIDS are mobilising resources for realising Vision 2016 and the goals of the National Strategic Framework (NSF) for HIV/AIDS.
She mentioned the importance of focusing on the youth, as has 43 percent of Botswana population is less than 15 years of age. She also noted that it is relevant as the youth are the most sexually active group and that heterosexual sex is the greatest mode of transmission in Africa. She added that Botswana's infection rate remains the highest amongst the sexually active, including adolescents.
However, she said the recent slight drop in infections among the youth, and the significant fall in transmission from mother to child, gives hope. She said Botswana is one of the few countries in the developing world to have attained the Millennium Development Goal six whose target is to halt and reverse the spread of HIV.
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