The government of Botswana stresses primary health care with emphasis on disease prevention and healthy living. As of 2004, there were an estimated 241 nurses, 29 physicians and 2 dentists per 100,000 people.
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The major health problems are malnutrition and tuberculosis. As of 2000, 17% of children under five years of age were considered malnourished. Public health teams conduct tuberculosis and malaria control campaigns. In 1999, there were 702 cases of tuberculosis per 100,000 people. In 1995, 70% of the population had access to safe water and 55% of the population had access to sanitation.
Approximately 33% of married women (ages 15 to 49) were using contraception. As of 1999, immunized children one year of age were as follows: diphtheria, pertussis, and tetanus, 90%; and measles, 86%.
The average life expectancy in 2005 was 33.87 years, the second-lowest in the world. The largest change in life expectancy was for females, which dropped from 60 years in 1980 to 33.84 years in 2005. The infant mortality rate in 2005 was 54.58 per 1,000 live births. For every 100,000 live births, 300 women died in pregnancy or childbirth as of 1998.
In June 2011, the United Nations Population Fund released a report on The State of the World's Midwifery. It contained new data on the midwifery workforce and policies relating to newborn and maternal mortality for 58 countries. The 2010 maternal mortality rate per 100,000 births for Botswana is 190. This is compared with 518.8 in 2008 and 236.8 in 1990. The under 5 mortality rate, per 1,000 births is 59 and the neonatal mortality as a percentage of under 5's mortality is 38. The aim of this report is to highlight ways in which the Millennium Development Goals can be achieved, particularly Goal 4 – Reduce child mortality and Goal 5 – improve maternal death. In Botswana the number of midwives per 1,000 live births is unavailable and 1 in 180 shows us the lifetime risk of death for pregnant women.[1]
The HIV/AIDS prevalence was 37.30 per 100 adults in 2003. As of 2004, there were approximately 350,000 people living with HIV/AIDS in the country. There were an estimated 33,000 deaths from AIDS in 2003. The rapid transmission of HIV/AIDS in Botswana has been due to three main factors: the position of women in society, particularly their lack of power in negotiating sexual relationships; cultural attitudes to fertility; and social migration patterns.
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