By Surihe Gaomas WINDHOEK Caprivi, Oshikoto and Otjozondjupa regions are set to become the first regions in the country to benefit from the recently-launched public communication and behaviour change programme in the fight against HIV/AIDS. The new programme, launched last Friday by the Ministry of Health and Social Services in Windhoek, is called “Communication for Behavioural Impact,” or COMBI for short. The main objective of the COMBI programme is to address the issue of prevention by looking at why people with sufficient knowledge of HIV/AIDS still engage in risky sexual behaviour. Speaking at the launch, Health Minister Dr Richard Kamwi said that so far awareness has played a critical role in HIV/AIDS prevention, but creating awareness is not the only solution. “COMBI is not only about producing posters and T-Shirts. We cannot tolerate any further infections and, as in other countries where the programme has been successful, we have to embrace the COMBI strategy,” explained Kamwi. In view of this, the Health Ministry has now embarked upon a health promotion strategy with development partners that will soon be implemented as a pilot project in the three regions of Caprivi, Oshikoto and Ohangwena. The reason why these regions were chosen is because there are already United Nations volunteers in those regions dealing with HIV/AIDS prevention on the ground, while the Caprivi is known to be the region with the highest infection of the pandemic in the country. The COMBI programme is set to start in these regions about the middle of the year and will later be rolled out to other parts of the country. Speaking at the same occasion World Health Organisation’s country representative, Dr Custodia Mandlhate, said the programme strives to provide “the link between knowledge and behaviour.” She further stressed that the COMBI approach is looking at filling the gaps found in the well-known ABC facts of HIV prevention, namely: Abstain, Be Faithful and Condomize. At the same time, Nuzhat Ehsan, country representative of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), added that COMBI goes beyond awareness-raising by influencing strongly on behaviour change at the end of the day. It turns out that while 84 percent of Namibians are knowledgeable about the disease of HIV/AIDS, infection rates only go down on a minimal level. Giving an in-depth presentation, World Health Organization Consultant, Dr Everold Hossein, said the COMBI programme, which was developed in Geneva by the WHO, borrows marketing strategies from the private business sector and applies them to health and social sciences. “It is easy to get people to know what to d; it is much harder to get them to do it,” he said, adding that the programme is more geared towards preventative care in terms of cost benefit and what value it has for the person at the end of the day. At the conclusion of the launch, prizes were also awarded to the winners of the World Aids Day essay competition, which was conducted together with the Ministry of Health and Social Services, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting and other partners. In light of this, Kamwi said the prevention message for all young Namibians is “zero-tolerance of new infections among the youth.” “In Namibia, infection in the 13-19 age group stood at 11% in 2004. We are aiming at having this prevalence rate drop to 9% this year. The age group 20-24 stood at 22%, and our target is also to have this rate drop to 15% this year,” said Kamwi. This data is based on the Sentinel Survey conducted by the Health Ministry on a biannual basis among pregnant women attending antenatal clinics. It was in response to this alarming rate that the World Aids Day essay competition was conducted last year. This year’s overall winner, who received a cheque of N$1ÃÆ’Æ‘ÀÃ…ÃÆ”šÃ‚ 000, was 25-year-old Petrina Thomas. In her brief speech, she said that nowadays young people tend to make irreversible mistakes when it comes to their health, and they should therefore be more responsible for their actions. The two runners-up are 18-year-old Hendrina Kangwe and 16-year-old Magdalena Ileka who each received an amount of N$500. The three winners were chosen from a selection of 87 entries.