The best of times, the worst of times

Behind the Princess Marina Hospital, not far from the centre of Gaborone, are the two small buildings that house Botswana’s largest anti-retroviral therapy clinic for people with HIV/AIDS. Alongside the red-brick blocks of the main hospital complex, these prefabricated buildings seem modest an temporary, nut it was here that Botswana’s ambitious HIV/AIDS treatment program – the first national scheme in Africa – was launched in early 2002. Over the past five years, the number of clinics across this sparsely populated country has grown exponentially, and there are now thirty-two sites, each with up to four satellite clinics, serving a national population of 1.8 million.