Skip the primary navigation if you do not want to read it as the next section.
Skip the main content if you do not want to read it as the next section.
| ORGANISATION: | MEDICINS SANS FRONTIERES (MSF) |
| AREA: | THYOLO DISTRICT, MALAWI |
| GRANT PERIOD: | 2006-2009 |
| BENEFICIARIES: | 28,000 PEOPLE |
In Thyolo, a very poor rural district in Southern Malawi:
- More than 57,500 people are estimated to be living with HIV/AIDS
- 10,000 people are in urgent need of antiretroviral therapy (ART)
- There are an estimated 1,000 - 1,300 children with advanced AIDS
In 2006, EJAF provided funding to support Medecins sans Frontieres (MSF) to develop an ART treatment programme in Thyolo.
The aim was to scale up the programme across the district, principally by decentralising medical care from two district hospitals to many local health centres, and so make treatment more accessible to communities, particularly mothers and children.
Now patients can start ART treatment at six local health centres, and 14 centres are able to manage patients on ART, once they have initiated their treatment at a hospital.
So far 9,450 adult patients and over 600 children have been enrolled on ART.
Medicines are paid for by the state and most of the healthcare staff are locals. The programme has also enrolled 1,651 pregnant women in the prevention-of-mother-to-child (PMTCT) programme and trained 600 volunteers to support Community Therapeutics Care (CTC) enabling more severely malnourished people to be reached. MSF is confident the programme will shortly reach ‘universal access’ in the district with all components of the programme.