HIV: Botswana Case Study
Research has shown that country’s with a low socioeconomic status such as Botswana have a substantial effect on a person living in its chance of receiving HIV/AIDS. Poor people are forced to do sexual activities as it is there only way of earning money and this harmfully increases their chance of receiving HIV/AIDS. In 2012 it was reported that sex workers or prostitutes have an HIV prevalence of 61.9 percent. There is also limited access to sex education in Botswana which is resulting in teenagers having sex without condoms, increasing their chance of receiving HIV/AIDS.
Social (gender inequality)
Botswana is the only part of the world where HIV prevalence and Aids deaths are higher for women, compared to men. Therefore gender inequality is essential for understanding how AIDS/HIV is spread. In Botswana there was evidence of common and customary laws that encourage gender discrimination. For example in Botswana there are tribal courts that treat infidelity as female crime only but men are allowed to have as many partners as they want. These laws keep women yielding to men and therefore give them an increased chance of receiving HIV/AIDS. In 2017 it was highlighted that there are 210,000 women in Botswana aged 15 and over that are living with HIV/AIDS compared to 160,000 Men aged 15 and over living with HIV in Botswana.
Two responses to the HIV/Aids crisis
Botswana Government
After the first reported case of HIV in Botswana in 1985, the government of Botswana knew they had to make a change. The governments approach towards this was that “by the year 2016 , the spread of HIV virus that causes Aids will have stopped, so that there will be no new infections by the virus in that year”. In 2000 the Gates foundation (with the help from the government of Botswana) attempted at constructing an HIV/AIDS medical care program aiming to help treat Botswana’s population that have been infected with HIV/AIDS. However this attempt didn’t work because there wasn’t a substantial medical building where the foundation could be implanted and there wasn’t any professional medical-care workers in Botswana that had the medicine to treat HIV/AIDS. By 2008, the Botswana government had spent 210 million dollars on their goal of getting rid of HIV/AIDS in their country. Thus, the Botswana Government made a substantial amount of attempts such as constructing an HIV/AIDS medical care program and employing HIV/Aids education technology for schools, that have been both unsuccessful and successful with helping fight HIV/AIDS, these attempts in the long run have helped decrease the amount of prevalence in Botswana.
International response to HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS)
– Once The international community realised that Botswana will not be able to bring the HIV/AIDS epidemic under control as much as it needs to be if the continent has to rely on its own rescources. They knew they had to take action by providing financial support. UNAIDS is an organisation built by the UN that is designed to be the leading supporter for an expanded worldwide response to HIV/AIDS. They have made an effort at funding levels that will be required to support a response to the Botswanan epidemic. They have estimated that the country needs 4 billion US dollars per year for the next 20 years to escalate a successful response to treating HIV/AIDS in Botswana. However the UNAIDS need African countries to be able to participate 0.25 percent to 0.50 percent of their gross domestic products to HIV/AIDS programmes.
Botswana government response to HIV/AIDS crisis
Strengths Weakness Opportunities Threats
Botswana has one of the most effective HIV treatment programs in Africa. They now provide free, life-saving AIDS drugs to all of the citizens who are in need of them. Approximately 95 percent of Botswana citizens who need the AIDS drugs are on them. Transmission of HIV from infected mothers to their newborn babies has been decreased to about 3 percent, emphasizing how effective the HIV treatment program has been .
In 2013, HIV prevention programs were only reaching about 45 percent of these of the population affected by AIDS. Botswana is a middle income country which faces a challenge when trying to comfort its impressive HIV response as donors mainly focus on helping lower income countries. For example PEPFAR has halved its funding towards AIDS in Botswana from 84 million dollars in 2011 to 28 million in 2016. The impact that the Botswana government has had on trying to reduce the spread of “HIV AIDS” in Botswana has opened up beneficial opportunities towards sustaining a large population. AIDS related deaths have decreased from the “14,000 recorded in 2005 to 3,900 in 2016”. Thus, Highlighting the important impact that the Botswana government has had in helping sustain a large population in Botswana. A frightening threat towards Botswana in trying to stop “the spread of HIV AIDS” is gender inequality. The HIV infections for women who are aged 15-49 have “risen from 4,500 in 2013 to 5,200 in 2016”, aspects such as forced marriage and gender based violence increase women’s exposure towards AIDS. Funding is also a dangerous threat because costs for AIDS are going to increase by approximately 65 million dollars in the next 20 years and international donors aren’t going to support Botswana anymore as they are now considered as an upper middle income country and support lower income country’s.
UNAIDS response to HIV/AIDS crisis
Strengths Weakness Opportunities Threats
UNAIDS made a strong effort in trying to help stop the spread of AIDS in Botswana. The UNAIDS have made a strong financial contribution to AIDS programmes in Botswana by donating approximately 75 percent of the 4 billion US dollars needed per year for the next 20 years towards treating AIDS in Botswana. Despite UNAIDS remarkably helping In financial contribution towards stopping the spread of AIDS in Botswana. They need to make awareness of how important testing is for treating AIDS in Botswana as only 1 in 12 citizens have ever taken an HIV test. This is what contributes to the 4,100 AIDS related deaths per year.
The UNAIDS financial support in helping reduce the spread of HIV AIDS in Botswana has opened up vast opportunities such as saving immense amounts of life’s in Botswana and helping save the economy by paying nearly 75 percent of the 4 billion US dollars needed per year for the next 20 years towards treating AIDS in Botswana. Adolescents and young adults have been “neglected and left behind by the national HIV response”, emphasizing that the HIV/AIDS services testing don’t believe that adolescents and young adults are a chance of being diagnosed with AIDS. There is also no sex education taught at schools, which acts as a traumatizing threat because without the knowledge of how to have safe sex, there is a dangerously high chance of a teenager receiving AIDS in Botswana.
The Botswana government made a very large contribution in reducing the spread of AIDS in Botswana by developing HIV/AIDS medical care programs and employing HIV/Aids education technology for schools which have taught adolescence that although oral sex is at a low risk for HIV transmission, using condoms reduce the risk of receiving HIV. These methods for preventing HIV have been both unsuccessful and successful with helping fight AIDS, these attempts in the long run have helped decrease the amount of prevalence in Botswana.
UNAIDS has made a very strong effort in helping stop the spread of AIDS in Botswana and have been very successful by providing financial contribution to AIDS programmes in Botswana. They have agreed to donate approximately 75 percent of the 4 billion US dollars needed per year for the next 20 years towards treating AIDS in Botswana. Therefore saving Botswana’s economic state and helping reduce the amount of AIDs related deaths from 15,000 to 4,000 deaths in the span of 10 years.
I think that the Botswana government is more likely to effectively deal with HIV/AIDS in Botswana rather than UNADIS as they provide more than just financial support to the table, they are providing free life saving AIDS drugs to nearly all of the citizens who have been transmitted with HIV. As well as developing HIV treatment programs which are allowing approximately 90 percent of Botswana citizens who need medication for AIDS to be using them. It is allowing for “those who couldn’t even walk to be now walking around the village everyday”, thus emphasizing the importance that the Botswana government has had on saving Botswana citizens living with AIDS life’s.
