Ndamera, Nsanje district, Malawi

Malawi

In Malawi, where an estimated 980,000 people are living with HIV, we run projects to support efforts to combat the virus.

Malawi’s massive budget deficit has hit the health system hard. In addition, international donors have withheld budget support since 2014 due to corruption scandals.

In Nsanje district, we support the severely underfunded district management team in running a fully decentralised HIV and tuberculosis (TB) programme that includes infants newly diagnosed with HIV. We also support in providing care for patients with advanced HIV in the district hospital, and healthcare for truck drivers and sex workers.

We are also developing a comprehensive programme to screen, diagnose and treat cervical cancer, which accounts for 40 per cent of all cancers among women in Malawi and kills an estimated 2,314 a year.

 

Our activities in 2022 in Malawi

Data and information from the International Activity Report 2022.

MSF IN MALAWI IN 2022 In 2022, Doctors Without Borders (MSF) worked alongside the Ministry of Health in Malawi to respond to several emergencies, including one of the worst cholera outbreaks in the country’s history.
Malawi country map for the International Activity Report 2022.

In January, after tropical storm Ana hit Malawi, MSF worked with the health ministry to reopen health centres to provide care for people who had been affected. Shortly afterwards, the country experienced a widespread cholera outbreak. From March onwards, our teams set up cholera treatment units in Mangochi and Blantyre districts, where we treated patients with severe and moderate symptoms. We also trained local healthcare workers, conducted health promotion sessions and epidemiological surveillance activities, and supported the local authorities in running an oral cholera vaccination campaign.

The mortality rates of cervical cancer in Malawi are among the highest in the world. Our teams, in collaboration with the Malawian health authorities, implement a comprehensive approach to the disease, aiming to improve access to prevention, screening, diagnosis and treatment. Our treatment activities are based at Queen Elizabeth Central hospital in Blantyre, and we have screening units integrated into health centres in several districts of the Southern region.

Activities cover all stages of the disease, from prevention of human papillomavirus infection with health promotion and vaccination to pre-cancerous and high-grade lesions, progression into invasive and metastatic cancer, and end-of-life care. As radiotherapy is not yet available in the country, we have started sending some patients to Nairobi.

In Chiradzulu district, we continued to offer a comprehensive package of care to children, teenagers and some adults living with HIV. This includes counselling, peer support, individual psychosocial support, and sexual and reproductive healthcare, in addition to antiretroviral treatment.

In 2022, we began supporting two community-based organisations that provide services for sex workers. Our teams supported with HIV testing, treatment and access to preventive measures for the disease.

IN 2022

 
Malawi

Cyclone Idai: MSF response to flooding in Southern Africa

Latest News 18 Mar 2019
 
HIV/AIDS

Pfizer and GSK’s HIV/AIDS division, ViiV, prevents children with HIV from getting needed medicine

Press Release 23 Jul 2018
 
Malawi

Malawi: Daughter of the floods

Latest News 29 Jan 2018
 
Tuberculosis

Simon Mendelsohn: “When a prison sentence is a death sentence”

Fieldworkers Stories 4 Aug 2017
 
Cholera

Drones: A helpful humanitarian tool

Latest News 28 Jun 2017
 
Portrait of sex worker Aida at her home with one of her children
Activity Report

MSF’s Corridor Project in Mozambique and Malawi 2014-2015

Report 15 Aug 2016