Message from the Chairman of the Local Organizing Committee
I am happy to welcome you to the first national HIV/AIDS/STI/and
other related infectious diseases (ORID) Research Conference (NHASORC).
This will be held from the 7th -12th December 2003 at the Gaborone
International Convention Centre.
Botswana remains one of the most researched countries
especially in sub-Saharan Africa. However, most HIV/AIDS/STI/ORID
research that has been conducted so far has largely been donor driven
with little local utilisation. Other research studies have been
a duplication of previous studies with some being narrowly focused
making it extremely difficult to understand the broad dynamics of
the HIV/AIDS epidemic in our country.
Time has come for researchers in Botswana and / or their collaborative
partners within or outside Botswana to assist the existing policy
and programme environment with more appropriate high quality data
to inform decisions. You are all aware that a state of emergency
has been declared on the HIV/AIDS epidemic, we can no longer address
the issues related to HIV/AIDS as business as usual.
The socio-economic, health and developmental impact
of the HIV/AIDS epidemic has begun to threaten developmental gains
that Botswana is currently enjoying unlike many of her neighbours.
It is difficult to put up an effective war against the epidemic
without generated evidence on the areas of both the disease and
the HIV virus itself. It is in this spirit that we all go to the
first NHASORC conference in Gaborone to share scientific knowledge
and experiences with a view to developing effective homegrown strategies
to tackle this terrible menace against our people.
The NHASORC conference will address issues related
to improving national actions based on the specific available evidences.
I therefore invite you all to actively participate in the conference
by presenting papers, contributing in discussions and sharing experiences
related to HIV/AIDS/STI/ORID research. We expect all of our HIV/AIDS/STI/ORID
researchers and / or their collaborators to send abstracts. The
abstracts need not necessarily be unpublished but could already
be published data for sharing and utilization.
We specifically invite researchers from the SADC countries
who have interesting research data on HIV/AIDS/STI/ORID research
to share. Ntwa e Bolotse!
Dr G K T Chiepe
Chairperson NHASORC, 2003
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