Malawi Reduces HIV Rate amid Challenges

Lameck Masina reports for the Voice of America (VOA) from Malawi. He was among African journalists who covered the 1st International African HIV& AIDS Conference organized by Woyome Foundation for Africa from November 28 – 30 2007 at La Palm Beach Hotel in Accra, Ghana.

Malawi has for the past years been among Sub-Saharan countries hardest-hit by HIV/AIDS scourge. But due to the various interventions in the fight which the Malawi government and its working partners have been implementing the infection rate has reached a record low.

Mary Shawa, Malawi’s secretary for HIV/AIDS and nutrition in the Office of the President and Cabinet (OPC), says Malawi's HIV prevalence rate had dropped to 12 percent in 2007, from 14.4 percent in 2004.

Shawa attributes Malawi's success in reducing its HIV prevalence to higher levels of testing and successful education campaigns.

Civil society groups have also played a significant role by speaking openly about AIDS, and the importance of faithfulness and being tested, and talking about treatment to groups at schools, churches and public places.
One of classic example of openness was witnessed at Civo Stadium in Malawi’s capital, Lilongwe stadium at the Annual International AIDS Candlelight Memorial Day on 18 May when a Church Pastor told the audience that he was HIV positive,
“When my son died of AIDS in 1986, we made it a point as a family to tell the world that AIDS is real, and that there was a need to speak openly about it if we were to save lives,” Pastor Gilbert Momola told the audience.
Pastor Momola’s openness did not only touched the hearts of many, but also that of a retired Zambian president Kenneth Kaunda who was among the high level delegations of anti-HIV/AIDS campaigners who graced the occasion that was held for the first time outside the USA.

“Such openness is one of the tools with which to reduce the prevalence rate among our people,” said Kaunda, who has been an icon in the fight against the pandemic since the death of his 30-year-old son from an AIDS-related illness.
This was a clear testimony that Malawi has moved from a society where there was a lot of stigma and discrimination to one that is accepting those that are living with HIV and AIDS.
As one of the preventive measures the government of Malawi is also contemplating to incorporate circumcision into other measures to curb the spread of HIV/AIDS among its people.
"We will ensure that people regard circumcision as an intervention that can only be effective if they behave and avoid risk behaviors that may lead to contraction of the virus," Roy Hauya, Director of Programs at the National AIDS Commission (NAC) told reporters in the commercial capital Blantyre.
Hauya said the idea to incorporate circumcision comes against a background of several research and trials indicating circumcision can curb the spread of the deadly and incurable virus.
He cited United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) figures that 3.7 million infections and 2.7 million deaths could be averted over the next 20 years if male circumcision is added to multi-preventive strategies already in place.
In July 2008 Malawi launched a Strategic HIV/AIDS Response by Enterprise (SHARE) report which provides essential information on the impact of the HIV and AIDS intervention.

The SHARE program is executed in a number of countries with the aim of implementing the international Labour Organization (ILO) code of practice on HIV and AIDS by overcoming discrimination, changing behavior and facilitating access to services and treatment.

Malawi is among the 24 countries participating in the SHARE programme and among the five African countries alongside South Africa, Botswana, Lesotho and Swaziland.

Minister of Labour Davis Katsonga said at the launch the of the report that  through the programmes with financial support from United States Department of Labour through ILO Malawi has made favourable environment for effective responses to HIV and AIDS at work places.

He said such responses include the formulations of policies at national and enterprise levels, establishing prevention and impact mitigating strategies and engaging in a tailor-made behavior change and communication strategies. 

Deputy Chief of Mission at the Malawi US embassy Kevin Sullivan said his government through the global fund wants to strengthen government and private health systems in Malawi to scale up counseling and testing, prevention of mother to child transmission services and antiretroviral treatment.

Over the past two years Malawi has registered an increase in the number of people on the life-prolonging antiretroviral (ARV) drugs from around 70,000 in 2006 to 150,000 in 2008.

In line with the UN Millennium Development Goal of universal treatment access to HIV and AIDS the Malawi’s National AIDS Commission (NAC) aims to have all 240,000 Malawians in need of ARVs on treatment by 2010.

Another important area to which Malawi has managed to channel scarce resources was improved nutrition for people living with HIV.

The Malawi government is implementing a programme of distributing food parcels containing cooking oil, beans, groundnuts and flour to malnourished people living with HIV.

“In Malawi, the pandemic is basically intertwined with nutrition and we tell people that taking ARVs without nutritious food does not help much,” says Shawa.

However the success which Malawi is boasting has not come without challenges. Chairperson of the Malawi Network of People Living with HIV and AIDS (MANET+) Justice Anastazia Msosa says one of the biggest challenges to Malawi's anti-AIDS efforts was inadequate human resources in the health care sector.

Despite millions of dollars that international donor community and government have poured into the AIDS programme, efforts to increase access to HIV testing, care and treatment have been hindered by the movement of health workers to Europe and other parts of the world for greener pastures.