02 May 2017

Bobirwa Sub-district has held a health fair in Bobonong under the theme: # Healthy Relationships = Healthy Life.

The event started with a walk from the show grounds to the bus rank. Minister of Defence, Justice and Security and Member of Parliament for Bobirwa, Mr Shaw Kgathi, government officials and the public took part in the walk.

Addressing attendants at the event, Assistant Minister of Health and Wellness, Mr Phillip Makgalemele said district health fairs were used as tools to disseminate information regarding health issues and HIV/ADS and to promote behaviour change. Furthermore, he said the fairs encouraged Batswana to lead healthy lifestyles.

He noted that the sub-district was selected to host the health fair for a number of reasons, adding that one of them was the high number of teenage pregnancies and high HIV incidents in the area.

He said other health challenges in the sub-district included a high number of new tuberculosis cases, high sexually transmitted infections, high alcohol and substance abuse cases, little participation of men in HIV and AIDS related issues, inadequate access to HIV services for people living with disabilities and inadequate youth friendly HIV services.

He said he believed that the innovative approaches in dealing with behaviour change could influence each person to reconsider their contribution in health issues and the fight against HIV and AIDS. He noted that whilst 90 per cent of the population was aware of the HIV/AIDS situation in the country, statistics still showed that the incidence of HIV infections was still rising in various population categories.

 “This means that there is a mismatch between what people know and what they actually do. People need to change from risky sexual behaviour to adopt safer sex practices,” he said.

He said Botswana subscribed to community engagement as a way of facilitating achievement of the goal of ending AIDS by 2030.

He said pursuant to the need for increased active community participation and involvement in the national response to HIV/AIDS, the Communities Acting Together to Control HIV (CATCH) model has been developed and piloted in the South East District and would be rolled out to other districts in the country.

He said CATCH aimed at building competencies of communities to develop behavioural, structural and bio-medical interventions to reduce new HIV infections, building their strengths to gather, analyse and act on data generated from their localities and setup national and local level infrastructure for sustaining community engagement.

He said non-communicable diseases (NCDs) also posed a challenge and have not received priority in public health policies and programmes. He said NCDs have become the biggest killer in the world, including Botswana, and have become a major challenge to development.

“In 2014 NCDs accounted for 37 per cent of deaths in Botswana,” he said, adding that major causes of NCDs included tobacco use, unhealthy diets, physical inactivity and harmful use of alcohol and drugs. “If these risk factors were eliminated, at least 80 per cent of all heart diseases, strokes and type 2 diabetes would be prevented and over 40 per cent of cancer would be prevented,” he said.

Meanwhile, Kgosi Letso Malema of Molalatau, who is also a member of Ntlo Ya Dikgosi, called on people to take responsibility for their health. He said people should eat healthy foods and exercise regularly to keep a healthy body.

Bobirwa Sub-district Council chairperson, Mr Nathaniel Moribame said government was playing a major role in keeping the nation healthy. ENDS