TB, AIDS laboratory opened

A new Ameican-funded TB and AIDS laboratory has opened in the Botswana, capital, Gaborone, media reports said on Thursday. The laboratory cost an estimated US $858,000 and will incorporate training, research and improved diagnosis of the two diseases. At the opening of the laboratory, US ambassador to Botswana, Robert Krueger was quoted as saying: “These two enemies, tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS, hang over the country like a funeral shroud.” Dr Thomas Kenyon of the Botswana-US TB programme, said that the TB rates in the country had doubled in the 1990’s and that the infection rate would continue to grow as more of the population became infected. Recent government statistics show that one in eight of Botswana’s 1.5 million were HIV positive.