The government stresses primary health care with emphasis on disease prevention and healthy living. As of 1999, there were an estimated 0.2 physicians and 1.6 hospital beds per 1,000 people.
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.
From 1980 to 1993, 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 2000 was 39 years, with an estimated death rate of 26 per 1,000 people as of 2002. The largest change in life expectancy was for females, which dropped from 60 years in 1980 to 40 years in 1999. The infant mortality rate in 2000 was 58 per 1,000 live births. For every 100,000 live births, 300 women died in pregnancy or childbirth as of 1998.
HIV prevalence was 35.8 per 100 adults in 1999. The rapid transmission of HIV 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. At the end of 2001, the number of people living with HIV/AIDS was estimated at 330,000 (including 38.5% of the adult population) and deaths from AIDS that year were estimated at 26,000.