Botswana

CIET has worked in Botswana since 2002. Botswana is one of the three countries in the CIET Choice Disability trial of interventions to reduce the effects of choice disability and thus reduce HIV infection, and is the centre for training in the CIET ADAPT (African Development of AIDS Prevention Trials capacities) programme.

Botswana is a land-locked country in Southern Africa, home to the Kalahari desert, and with an estimated 2011 population of 2 million. The estimated prevalence of HIV among adults (aged 15-49) in Botswana was 23.4% in 2011, with an annual HIV incidence of around 1.5%.

The Choice Disability Trial in Botswana

Implementation of the Choice Disability trial in Botswana reflects the overall implementation of the trial across all three countries. Stratified random allocation of interventions to the 25 trial sites (communities) in Botswana meant that:

14 received the Beyond Victims and Villains (BVV) intervention (alone or in combination)
12 received the Focused Workshop (FW) intervention (alone or in combination)
13 received the Concerting intervention (alone or in combination)
4 received no trial intervention

One of the 25 sites in Botswana is the pilot site for the trial and deliberately received all three of the trial interventions. We began each intervention in this site, in order to identify and iron-out implementation issues before proceeding to implementation in all the other sites allocated to receive that intervention in all three countries.

The three countries in the trial have undertaken the interventions somewhat differently, reflecting their particular national characteristics. We describe here how the field teams have undertaken the interventions in Botswana.

For previous works in Botswana click here.