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Malawi has, in recent years, registered positive developments in the area of HIV and AIDS.
In the year 2023, Malawi was celebrating that it has been able to achieve the United Nations Programme on HIV and AIDS (UNAIDS) 95-95-95 targets, in which 95 percent of all people living with HIV know their status; 95 percent of these people are on treatment; and 95 percent of those on treatment are virally suppressed.
However, gaps still remain, one of them being the plight of children with HIV/AIDS, more especially those in the rural area.
A 13-year-old Martin (not real name for ethical reasons) is a living example of children living with HIV and has lived a miserable life due to the disease.
Martin, who hails from Senior Chief Mwabulambya in Chitipa, lost his mother some time back and was living with his grandmother while his uncle (brother to his father) was staying at a distance.
It was hell on earth in 2022 when his only pillar, his grandmother, passed on.
His uncle stole the two goats that Martin received from Thembi Community Initiative Organisation, and he went to Tanzania, leaving Martin without any relatives.
“After the death of my grandmother, I was staying alone. Most of the time, I would go to sleep without taking any food, which resulted in staying for some days without taking ARVs,” Martin says while tears trickle down his cheeks.
The standard three learner had to be accommodated by his grandmother’s neighbour after seeing the suffering of the innocent child.
Hope is another child living with HIV whose mother passed on last year and was staying with his father living with mental illness.
Hope and his father used to wash plates at one of the restaurants in the district before going to school. After coming back from school, the 15-year-old standard six learner would go straight to the restaurant to wash dishes for lunch, which was tiresome.
“Sometimes I would sleep without food which resulted in missing taking my ARVs. And the other time my father wanted to kill me because of his condition,” Hope narrates.
He says: “I salute Thembi Community Initiative for taking me on board. Without this organisation, I could have died by now. Because of the challenges I was going through, I was thinking of committing suicide.”
Hope, who is now at a boarding primary school sponsored by Thembi Community Initiative, asks for more players to join the fight against this pandemic, saying more children are suffering.
Martin and Hope are just a few examples of children living with HIV who are suffering in rural areas in the district and country as a whole.
Programmes Director for Thembi Community Initiative Organisation, Patrick Ziba, says they are providing food and transport to children living with HIV during ART clinics.
Ziba says his organisation was compelled to implement the programme after seeing that many children and their guardians were walking long distances to access the ARTs at Chitipa District Hospital.
“We are implementing this programme in Senior Chief Mwabulambya. Children and their guardians were walking long distances to access ARTs and others would even fail to come for ARTs,” Ziba says.
He adds: “It is not on, walking all the way from Chendo to access ARTs. That’s why many clients could fail to collect ARVs.”
Ziba, who is also Chitipa District Civil Society Network Chairperson, says many children are suffering in rural areas, especially children living with HIV.
“We need more players in this sector so that we can achieve the UNAIDS target of 95-95-95.
“As Thembi Community Initiative Organisation, we are ready to partner with other NGOs so that we can implement the programme in the whole district and even expand to other districts,” he says.
Thembi Community Initiative Organisation, which does not have a vehicle, relies on an old motorbike to implement its activities.
“As a way to sustain the programme, we have a 14-acre farm where we grow maize, groundnuts and soya. We use groundnuts and soya to make porridge flour called Thembi Phala, which we now give to malnourished children.
“We also give 25 kg maize flour to ultra-poor households who are in the programme during this lean period, from December to March,” he says.
Ziba further says his organisation has a pigs and goats pass-on initiative, which targets households who are on the programme.
ART Coordinator for Chitipa District, Thomson Chirwa, noted with concern that some parents and guardians are not supportive to children taking the treatment.
Chirwa says long distances to clinics to access ART and lack of nutritional support at home are some of the challenges children living with HIV face.
“Chitipa District Hospital, Kameme and Nthalire Health Centres do not have defaulters because Partners in Hope supports these health facilities with a mechanism that tracks all defaulters and brings them back to care. We however have problems with non-supported sites,” Chirwa says.
National AIDS Commission (NAC) and its partners in the National Response to the HIV and AIDS epidemic gathered at Sunbird Capital Hotel, on August 9 last year, to take stock of their annual performance in the fight against HIV and AIDS.
This Joint Annual Review meeting was held under the theme “Optimising Public Health Equity and Community Systems through Integration of HIV Services for Impact” and it focused on activities implemented in the 2022/2023 financial year.
During the meeting, NAC Board of Commissioners Chairperson, Dr. Chipo Kanjo, said currently the country’s performance against the 95:95:95 targets stood at 94:99:95.
She said in the period under review, the National Response to HIV and AIDS was rocked by some challenges, including the cholera outbreak and Cyclone Freddy disaster, which hampered provision of AIDS-related services.
“Apart from negatively impacting on the provision of the HIV and AIDS services, these challenges affected the wider social-economic fabric, thereby threatening to reverse the gains made in achieving the targets set in the National Strategic Plan for HIV and AIDS,” said Kanjo.
“Despite these hurdles, I am pleased to report that Malawi still made remarkable progress towards meeting the 2025 National Strategic Plan targets. For example, by the end of the year under review, in March 2023, cumulatively, a total of 949,158 HIV-positive individuals were diagnosed, with 937,241 receiving life-prolonging antiretroviral drugs and 881,007 achieving viral suppression,” she added.
