Stark Aids message for Botswana

By Martin Plaut
BBC Africa analyst

President Mogae says his people must accept a blunt message

The president of Botswana, one of the most HIV-ridden countries in the world, has warned his country it cannot go on with such a high infection rate.

President Festus Mogae told the BBC his people had to accept a blunt message: abstain from unsafe sex, or die.

He said overseas funding of drugs would not go on indefinitely, and Botswana could not afford on its own to keep a rising number of patients alive.

Mr Mogae was giving an interview timed to coincide with World Aids Day.

Botswana is presented as a test case for the roll-out of anti-retroviral drugs in Africa.

No peak in sight

Diamonds and tourism have made it a relatively rich country and money from the United States and Microsoft tycoon Bill Gates' foundation are helping fund the most ambitious treatment programme on the continent.

Some 35,000 people are now on anti-retrovirals and the number is rising.

Hope from Botswana's pain

But the foreign funding will not last forever.

"It's not sustainable in the long term unless something happens to the infection. We have to say things like 'abstain or die'," he says.

It is seldom that politicians speak their mind quite as plainly as President Mogae.

But with a staggering 37% of all adults now HIV positive, and with no sign of the epidemic peaking, he does not mince his words.

It is a blunt message, but is perhaps the only way of getting through to his own people and raising the alarm across the wider world.