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| National |
| HIV/Aids pandemic stabilises in Malawi |
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by
Denis Mzembe, 10 February 2004
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17:33:48
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Malawi has in the past three consecutive years seen the spread of the HIV/Aids stabilise at between 14 and 15 percent, executive director of the National Aids Commission (NAC) Bizwick Mwale said on Tuesday.
Mwale made the statement at the launch of Malawi’s first National HIV/Aids policy entitled A call to renewed action in the commercial capital Blantyre.
“The epidemic is moving from urban areas where it has been concentrated for sometime towards the rural areas,” he said
Mwale said there are indications of a decline in some parts of the country, like Lilongwe, among the young population aged between 15-24 years.
He said in 2003 the HIV/Aids prevalence for people aged between 15 and 49 years stabilised at 14.4%.
“This translates to approximately 760,000 adults who are living with HIV. Of these 440,000 are women creating in the process close to 840,000 orphans 45% of them with Aids,” he said.
Mwale said since the epidemic started in 1985 in Malawi close to 640,000 people have died because of HIV/Aids related complications. In 2003 there were 110,000 new HIV/Aids infections and close to 87,000 deaths.
“HIV/Aids remains a global challenge not only for Malawi, but throughout the world. About 26.6 million people in Sub Saharan Africa are living with HIV, the virus that causes Aids,” Mwale quoted the 2003 UNAIDS report.
Mwale then outlined the objective of the national HIV/Aids policy saying its main focus is to prevent the further spread of the pandemic and mitigate its impact on the socioeconomic status of individuals, families, communities and the nation.
He said the policy will provide legal and administrative guidance in the management of the national HIV/Aids response.
“The policy objectives would improve the provision and delivery of prevention treatment, care and support services for people living with Aids and reduce individual and societal vulnerability to HIV/Aids by creating an enabling environment,” he said.
One of the main guiding principles of the policy is political leadership and commitment at all levels, multi-sectoral approach and partnerships, promotion and protection of human rights and good governance, transparency and accountability, among others.
“The main thematic areas of the policy, on the other hand includes sustaining a comprehensive multisectoral response, promotion of HIV/Aids prevention, treatment, care and support,” he added.
Chairman of Malawi’s National Aids Commission Brown Chimphamba said while Malawi has made significant strides in fighting the epidemic, it remains difficult for the country to cope with the situation because of its already weak social infrastructure and support facilities.
“During the past two decades of HIV and Aids response, it became clear that the epidemic raised many issues, challenges and conditions that required clear policy guidelines. Such a policy had to be based on law, ethics, social principles and administrative practices for an effective response to be mounted,” Chimphamba said.
He said the national HIV and Aids policy has been going through a comprehensive consultative process since 2000.
“The process was accelerated in 2002 when need for a formal policy became even greater in the context of changing interventions and approaches including voluntary counselling and testing, prevention of mother to child transmission, management of opportunistic infections, including the provision of Anti-retroviral treatment and the need for a broad-based multisectoral HIV and Aids response,” he said.
Launching the policy President Bakili Muluzi emphasised the need for many Malawians to go for voluntary HIV/Aids testing “if the fight against the epidemic is to be successful”.
“The more we know about our status the better because we could manage to deal with the situation much better than is the case now,” Muluzi said.
He said it is discouraging to note that only about 3 percent of the total population of 11 million has so far gone for testing.
Muluzi disclosed that he has since gone through voluntary testing himself “and the news is good news”.
The President also disclosed that his brother Dickson died of the disease.
Executive Director of UNAIDS Peter Piot, who also attended the launch, said stigma and discrimination remains the biggest barrier to effective aids response.
“Stigma keeps people away from treatment where treatment is available. And I have seen how stigma can kill people before the virus kills them,” Piot said.
He commended Malawi for making “enormous progress” in the fight against Aids.
Piot said UNAIDS and other UN agencies will strive to make HIV/Aids treatment available in the third world “and not that it should be a preserve of rich nations.
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