Botswana Struggles to Overcome the Worst AIDS Rate in the World 

by Don Hinrichsen - UNFPA

Francistown--Botswana, April 2001 -- Botswana is the front line of the war against AIDS. This insidious disease has spread silently, but all too swiftly through the population of this southern African nation, that sits on top of South Africa. UNAIDS estimates that fully one-third of Botswana’s sexually-active population between the ages of 15 and 49 (out of a total population of 1.5 million) are infected with the virus that causes AIDS, the highest rate in the world. About 85 persons are infected with HIV every day and one of every eight infants are infected at birth.

“We need to declare war on this pandemic,” says Reverend Benjamin Walter Mpho Moruakgomo of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, and one of the country’s leading advocates for making this disease the government’s number one challenge. “There is nothing that represents a bigger threat to our lives than HIV/AIDS. It has wreaked havoc on our population – I don’t know one family that has been spared.”

The disease has affected every segment of society, sparing no one. It spread rapidly after being detected because many people did not understand how it was spread, or how to prevent it. Although recent UNFPA surveys show that nearly 80 per cent of people in the 15-49 age group have some knowledge of how AIDS is contracted, they are not altering their sexual behaviour. 

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