President says AIDS crisis is deepening

Festus Mogae, president of Botswana says that the AIDS epidemic has grown into an “unprecedented crisis” and was “eating away at the country’s economic gains”, Reuters reported on Wednesday.

In a speech to parliament on Tuesday Mogae said: “HIV/AIDS is working against all our painstaking efforts to develop Botswana. It is having a devastating effect on the country’s population and effecting economic performance.” He said that the disease had hit the educated and young labour force the hardest. “These people in which there has been a huge investment in education are dying before they can become productive and before the country can reap the benefit of its investment.”

Mogae said that Botswana’s traditional attitude towards sex had made it difficult for the government to educate the public about the disease and encourage people to change their behaviour. “AIDS is a national disaster. The government cannot force people to change their attitudes. The onus is on the nation as a whole to change its attitude towards sex. The choice is crystal clear. Botswana is a nation at war with AIDS. Let us change our sexual lifestyles, let us remove taboos surrounding sex, lest we lose the war,” he said.