Botswana's Vision 2016 & the Mochudi Prevention Project

The year 2016 will mark the 50th anniversary of Botswana's independence.
In anticipation of this milestone, various stakeholders came together in
the 1990's and developed the Vision 2016 Strategic Goals. These Goals
cover everything from health and education to security, morality, and
culture.

The Mochudi Prevention Project addresses the HIV/ AIDS section of Vision
Pillar 6: A Compassionate, Just and Caring Nation that reads, “By the year
2016, the spread of the HIV virus that causes AIDS will have been stopped,
so that there will be no new infections by the virus in that year.”
(http://www.vision2016.co.bw/index.html)

Since the establishment of the Vision 2016 Strategic Goals, researchers
and policy makers have made great strides in HIV/ AIDS treatment; however,
the prevalence of HIV in Botswana has continued to climb. Currently
available treatments have been very successful in Botswana, but treatment
alone is not a sustainable model. In order for Botswana to realize the
goal of zero new infections by 2016, new and effective prevention
strategies are essential.

This is what I think is so exciting about the work we are doing in the Mochudi Prevention Project-- we are using a comprehensive approach to transmission prevention. I am specifically interested in interventions that target behavioral change including: promoting the ABC's (abstinence, being faithful and condom use), encouraging people to get tested and emphasizing the importance of infant and adult (for HIV negative males) getting circumcised.

So, I thought I would highlight a few of the prevention strategies that
are currently underway in Botswana (and at BHP). This week's highlighted prevention
strategy is infant circumcision.

As you likely know, circumcision can help prevent an HIV negative male
from becoming HIV positive. In response to this evidence, several of my
colleagues have been involved in acceptability and implementation studies
about infant circumcision in Botswana. This week I had the opportunity to
observe a newborn circumcision in their clinic. The procedure they used
was like nothing I had ever seen (and I've seen a lot of infant
circumcisions). The Accu-Circ is really amazing- and apparently it holds
great promise for scaling up the infant circumcision efforts in Botswana-
which is a very good thing.

Coming soon, I will blog about media messages including abstinence, condom
use and discouraging multiple concurrent sexual partnerships (such as
sugar daddies and 'small houses.')

In closing, next weekend, the nation will be celebrating Independence Day and her 44th birthday (complete with a 4-day weekend). That leaves six
years for her to realize the Vision 2016 Goals. The team at BHP are certainly doing their part to give Botswana her best shot at realizing the HIV-related Vision 2016 goals. Oorah!

p.s. the image included in this posting is from the US Embassy- Botswana Facebook page