MALAWI: Malawi's government conducts week-long HIV/AIDS testing campaign

Record ID: 402252

  • Title: MALAWI: Malawi's government conducts week-long HIV/AIDS testing campaign
  • Date: 21st July 2007
  • Summary: SECRETARY FOR NUTRITION AND HIV/AIDS, DR. MARY SHAWA, JOINS TRADITIONAL DANCERS
  • Embargoed: 5th August 2007 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Malawi
  • Country: Malawi
  • Topics: Health,Domestic Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVACSR7IR4RBP8ZVZEE95QGOL7UV
  • Story Text: A massive HIV testing programme launched by health officials in Malawi at the beginning of the week, ends on Friday (July 20).
    Malawi has already lost an estimated one million people to AIDS since the disease first surfaced in the 1980s, straining its tiny health-care system and devastating agricultural production, the lifeblood of the local economy. The government estimates that only one million of Malawi's six million sexually active population know their HIV status and hoped to administer voluntary HIV tests to some 130,000 people this week.
    Dr. Mary Shawa, Malawi's Permanent Secretary for Nutrition and HIV/AIDS, said her country was "excelling in specific components of HIV/AIDS work." She said: "Malawi is one of the few countries that has provided nutrition support for people living with AIDS and it was also a model programme because none of the countries world-wide has that type of programme."
    Many of the estimated 14 percent of Malawian adults who are HIV-positive do not know they are infected, the government has said. This is jeopardising efforts to stop the spread of the HIV/AIDS epidemic among sexually active teenagers and adults.
    "I have fever and I just feel like I have the virus. I am a divorcee and since my husband left me, I have fallen sick very often. So I think this is the best way to make better plans," said Jessy Nazombe during testing in Chendausika village.
    AIDS activists have praised Malawi for its hands-on approach to fighting the disease, noting that it was one of the first nations in sub-Saharan Africa to implement a regular national HIV testing programme.
    "We want to take the lessons learnt again from Malawi, from the leadership that we are seeing from Malawi, and take that through the UN and through the World Health Organisation to provide technical support to other countries that are interested in running testing weeks or testing days like this one," said Colin McCiff, a representative from the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UN/AIDS).
    Malawi still faces many challenges in its attempts to contain the disease. Close to 30,000 new-borns are infected every year because of the government's failure to prevent mother-to-child transmission, and only a fraction of those living with HIV have access to life-saving anti-retroviral drugs, according to officials.
    The government see the nation-wide tests as the first step towards bringing down the number of AIDS deaths. The country's Minister of Health, Marjorie Ngaunje, led by example when she took one of the first tests.
    "I feel the taste of the pudding is in the eating, so it's good for us leaders to be part of the process rather than just encouraging people to test and then you are not seen to be partaking of the particular process," Ngaunje said.
    The impoverished nation continues to struggle to find enough money to put in place grassroots HIV-prevention efforts, especially in rural areas where HIV infection rates are still rising, in contrast to the declines seen in cities. The current testing programme costs about $1.5 million USD.
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