2 December 2008
Former president Festus Mogae has hailed a Swedish organisation for lending a hand in Africa's fight against HIV/AIDS. Mogae was speaking at the International Council of Swedish Industry and the Swedish Industrial Metalworkers' Union conference.
The conference was organised by the two organisations' Swedish Workplace HIV/AIDS Programme in Stockholm. The programme aims at contributing to the establishment and support of HIV/AIDS programmes at the workplace by engaging Swedish companies and their partners in Sub-Saharan Africa.
Mogae said the Swedish organisations have helped many African countries and they are now cooperating with 50 workplaces in Botswana, Kenya, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda,Zambia and Zimbabwe to encourage the management and employees to work together to prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS and to assist those needing care, treatment and support. He stated that southern Africa remains disproportionately affected by the epidemic.
"In our nations are two thirds of the people living with HIV worldwide, and 90% of all infected children. Although in some countries HIV prevalence rates have stabilised and started to decline, the levels are still too high. For example, 24% of adults in Botswana, 23% in Lesotho, 26% in Swaziland and 18% in South Africa are living with the virus," he said.
He said that some successes have been made in the fight against HIV. Out of the three million people on antiretroviral therapy worldwide, he said, one million started therapy for the first time last year in Africa. "Today, in my country, Botswana, almost 100,000 people are receiving antiretroviral therapy representing almost 95% of those in need," he said.
In Botswana, he noted, transmission of HIV to babies has reduced from 40% to 4%. He said that despite the successes, Botswana is still facing challenges as new infections continue to occur.
"Despite significant efforts by African countries and growing financial flows from development partners, the response to the epidemic has failed to stop the occurrence of new infections and risky behaviour," he said.
Mogae asserted that there were 1.9 million new HIV infections in sub-Saharan Africa in 2007. "One may ask why have prevention efforts lagged behind? This has been attributed to several social factors such as number of multiple concurrent sexual partnerships, intergenerational sex, high mobility, limited prevalence of male circumcision and inconsistent condom use. Perhaps more than anything, insufficient ownership of the response has delayed meaningful results," he said.
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