Africa-Press – Botswana. Botswana and Swiss authorities must ensure that the Memorandum of Intent on Health signed between the two countries leads to practical partnership, President of the Swiss Confederation, Mr Alain Berset has urged.
He said this after touring the Botswana Harvard AIDS Institute Partnership (BHP) in Gaborone on Tuesday. President Berset said the two countries should actively pursue collaboration in the health sector and ensure the memorandum that he had earlier signed with President Dr Mokgweetsi Masisi became more than just a document.
Mr Berset praised Botswana’s capacity for scientific research, and called on the country’s scientists to continue sharing their discoveries with the world. This he said in acknowledgment of BHP’s discovery of the Omicron variant of COVID-19 in November 2021.
Admitting that European states had been unfair and rash in imposing movement restitutions on Botswana and other Southern African countries after the Omicron discovery, Mr Berset said detection of the variant was an example of the Botswana’s robust research capability
He said he visited the laboratory to have a peep into the country’s medical research capability, as well as to explore ways in which the two countries could collaborate in the sector.
Acting Minister of Health, Mr Sethomo Lelatisitswe thanked Mr Berset for his visit to “appreciate first-hand the scientific research that led to the discovery of the Omicron variant and to interact with the scientists behind such high-end research.”
Mr Lelatisitswe also thanked the team of researchers at BHP Laboratory “for putting the country on the global map once again through the discovery of the Omicron variant.”
BHP’s Laboratory director, Dr Sikhulile Moyo, who is credited with the discovery of the Omicron variant, said their high-end research depended on state-of the-art equipment whose efficiency they had been working on over the last 20 years. He said while BHP’s initial focus, when it was founded in 1996 was to combat HIV and AIDS, they had now broadened research to other virological areas.
Dr Moyo said over time, they had also worked on capacity building of medical personnel. He said they were helping to train the next generation of scientists, including those at doctorate and master’s level placed at different institutions in Botswana and outside the country.
Dr Joseph Makhema, who has been at the helm of the pioneering institution over the years, said BHP had good intellectual capacity trained in the developed world, and collaboration with Switzerland could assist in its goal to improve laboratory capacity and human capital development.
Established in 1996 as a collaboration between Botswana’s Ministry of Health and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health (HSPH), BHP is a world-class research and training institution with more than 300 scientists, students and staff members. It partners with the Botswana government, universities around the world, the private sector and civil society to design and deliver high-quality health research, training and practical interventions to address the HIV/AIDS epidemic and other major health challenges in Botswana and the region (from BHP website).
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