Through PEPFAR, CDC Botswana provides technical assistance to help the ministry of health (MOH) implement an effective, efficient national HIV program. This support has contributed to saving the lives of men, women and children through high quality HIV treatment services and a comprehensive combination prevention strategy. Using a data-driven approach, this strategy is tailored to the unique characteristics of the local epidemic for maximum health impact.
Key areas of focus include high quality prevention, care and treatment services; HIV/counseling and testing scale-up; TB/HIV integrated service delivery; blood safety; early infant diagnosis (EID); and strengthening health systems. Health system strengthening is needed for long term program sustainability and includes building country capacity in the areas of workforce development, epidemiology, surveillance, health information systems, and program monitoring and evaluation to assess impact and make rapid course corrections to keep pace with changes in the local epidemic. CDC also builds in-country capacity for skilled laboratory workers, and national laboratory services which are vital to the expansion of HIV treatment, diagnosis, and care.
CDC support has played a key role in a number of Botswana success stories including its care and treatment program, the prevention of mother-to-child transmission (PMTCT), and voluntary medical male circumcision (VMMC). As of September 2012, 96% of men, women and children in need of HIV treatment received it. PMTCT has achieved a country-wide reduced transmission rate of less than 4%. The scale-up of VMMC has mounted to nearly 63,000 circumcisions conducted nationally over three years, with 65% of them achieved in 2012 alone.
With CDC support, huge strides have also been made in building high quality laboratory systems and capacity. Recent accomplishments include the establishment of a national TB reference laboratory, the implementation of enhanced diagnostics, the deployment of a laboratory information system to support and improve lab management and quality assurance, and the achievement of ISO 15189 accreditation.