Saturday was for Funerals

I have been reading a heartrending and also hopeful book called Saturday is for Funerals by Motswana novelist and Judge Unity Dow in collaboration with Max Essex from Harvard. The book is about how Botswana, with one of the highest HIV infection rates in the world (in a region with the highest infection rates in the world), managed to turn its epidemic around. Indeed across Africa infection rates are down and access to treatment is up, with Botswana at the forefront. Testing became an ‘opt-out’ rather than ‘opt-in’ procedure, government clinics were established, doctors and nurses were trained and ARVs are now available to all who need them. As the end of the book notes, forward thinking leadership was one of the key ingredients. The worry now is that government may not be able to sustain the access to treatment for all; the expenditures have already been described as ‘unsustainable.’ Then what?