Reluctance to face tests slows Botswana AIDS fight.

The prevailing wisdom on fighting AIDS in Africa has been that if the money was available and countries built a solid treatment program offering free drugs people would come in droves. That wisdom has proved wrong in Botswana. It offered free antiretroviral drugs. It has put up $30 million annually for AIDS programs. It attracted loads of outside help -- the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the drug giant Merck & Co. each contributed $50 million over five years and the Harvard AIDS Institute has sent teams of experts and built advanced AIDS laboratories. The country also trained hundreds of doctors and nurses to control the pandemic and will have opened a remarkable 16 AIDS treatment clinics by the end of this year. (excerpt)