Microsoft founder turned philanthropist Bill Gates and his wife Melinda will visit Botswana on Wednesday, the Office of President Festus Mogae announced on Friday.
The visit is part of a Gates’ tour of Africa. They will be in Mozambique on Sunday and in South Africa on Monday and Tuesday.
In South Africa they will meet former president Nelson Mandela and his wife Graca Machel.
Details of their visit to Botswana have not yet been announced, although it will be surprising if they do not meet Mogae as the Gates Foundation is the largest funder of Botswana’s programme to combat HIV/Aids.
The country has one of the world’s highest rates of HIV infection.
United Nations statistics have it that at the end of 2001, 330,000 people or 19,4% of the 1,7-million population of Botswana were living with HIV/Aids.
There were 69 000 children orphaned because of the epidemic, 71 people died every day, and 25 babies born every day were infected with the disease. Ninety percent of infections were in the most economically actively 15 to 49 age group.
At the end of 2002, the UN said prevalence amongst pregnant women in Botswana and three other southern Africa countries was ”higher than it had thought possible”. Botswana was 35,4%, Lesotho 31%, Swaziland 33,4%, and Zimbabwe 33,7%.
In sub-Saharan Africa, 3,5-million were infected with HIV during 2002, bringing the total of infected persons to 29,4-million; 2,4-million of those infected died.
In July 2000, the Gates Foundation, with the Merck company, the Merck Foundation, and the Botswana government founded the African Comprehensive HIV/Aids Partnerships (ACHAP).
The foundation committed $50-million over five years, matched by $50-million from the Merck Foundation.
In co-operation with the National Aids Co-ordinating Authority, which reports directly to Mogae, ACHAP manages the government’s anti-Aids campaign.
A programme to provide antiretroviral drugs to HIV sufferers has started at four centres and will be rolled out countrywide. – Sapa