Communicable diseases along with maternal, perinatal and nutritional conditions in Botswana accounted for an estimated 60 per cent majority of all mortality in 2008. The prevalence of HIV in Botswana, as a percentage of population aged 15-49 years, stood at 23 per cent in 2012. Levels of the disease peaked in the early 2000s and, although there has been a decline in recent years, HIV prevalence in the country is still very high. In the period 2000-11, the number of confirmed cases of, as well as deaths from, malaria dropped by more than half. Estimated incidences of tuberculosis (TB) have seen an overall decrease in the period 1990-2012 after peaking in 1998, while estimated mortality (when mortality data excludes cases co-morbid with HIV) has decreased by more than two-thirds in the same time.
