Malawi and Global Fund Launch New Grants to Accelerate Progress Against HIV, TB and Malaria
27 August 2024
LILONGWE - Today the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria (the Global Fund), the government of Malawi and World Vision Malawi have launched the implementation of three new grants worth over US$525 million to sustain progress against AIDS, tuberculosis (TB) and malaria while strengthening health and community systems across the country over the 2024-2027 period.
“Global Fund grants go beyond HIV, TB and malaria – from the recruitment of health workers to the establishment of oxygen plants and the construction of health posts in villages to ensure that nobody should walk more than five kilometers to get access to health,” said Hon. Khumbize Chiponda, Health Minister of Malawi. “Our system was so fragile that we could not fix it in a day; it is a process. The new grants give us the opportunity to follow through to the point where our health system can withstand climate shocks and give quality services to the people of Malawi.”
“Malawi has been a key partner of the Global Fund over the years, achieving significant progress against HIV, TB and malaria while building resilient and sustainable systems for health,” said Mark Edington, Head of Grant Management at the Global Fund. “The grants signed today reflect the government and people of Malawi’s strong and renewed commitment towards ending the three diseases despite challenges such as climate change, which has a noteworthy impact on malaria.”
For HIV the grants intend to support Malawi in its efforts to consolidate HIV epidemic control by reaching and surpassing the UNAIDS 95-95-95 targets. They further aim to reduce mortality among people living with HIV through the scale-up of comprehensive, patient-centered care for people living with HIV, including the management of noncommunicable diseases such as diabetes and hypertension. High-impact prevention services, such as HIV and syphilis testing, and prevention services, including condom distribution and pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP), will be brought closer to communities, including key populations and adolescent girls and young women.
The TB grants aim to help reduce TB incidence and mortality through the acceleration of rapid molecular testing, preventive therapy, and the optimization of second-line treatment for drug-resistant TB, supporting the country in its transition to the BPaLM regimen. Investments will further consolidate patient-centered TB management approaches that also rely on community-based activities, including door-to-door TB screening and community sputum collection, and peer-led treatment monitoring.
The malaria grant will help Malawi eliminate malaria by 2030 by increasing the proportion of the population protected by at least one malaria vector control intervention from 37% in 2022 to at least 90% by 2030, as well as maintaining high testing and treatment rates. It will support Malawi’s transition from indoor residual spraying towards a more sustainable vector control approach through the mass distribution of dual active ingredient insecticide-treated nets. It will also support improved integrated community case management (iCCM) for pneumonia and diarrhea, in addition to malaria treatment in children under the age of 5.
The funds across the three grants also aim at strengthening health systems to support Malawi’s universal health coverage agenda. This includes building strong laboratory systems and infrastructure, disease surveillance, a health product management system, and operationalization of a policy around community health systems, including training and remunerating community health workers.
The Ministry of Health of Malawi and World Vision Malawi will implement the grants with the support and engagement of the communities most affected by the three diseases and with a focus on identifying and addressing human rights and gender issues.
Since 2003, the Global Fund has invested more than US$2.1 billion in Malawi. Despite being a low-income country of 20 million people, Malawi has made very significant progress in controlling its HIV, TB and malaria epidemics in recent years, contributing to the improvement of the overall life expectancy at birth from 44.7 years in 2000 to 62.5 years in 2021.
New HIV infections and AIDS-related deaths have decreased dramatically (72% and 67% between 2010 and 2023, respectively), and by end of 2023 there were over 1 million people receiving antiretroviral therapy.
Overall TB mortality declined by around 50% between 2015 and 2022, and TB detection and treatment success rates have consistently improved: Out of the more than 9,000 people with TB who started treatment in the second semester of 2022, 90% were successfully treated.
Collaborative interventions for TB and HIV have improved over the last half-decade and have driven high rates of HIV testing among TB patients (>99%) and high antiretroviral therapy coverage among co-infected patients (>99%). Although Malawi is still in the control phase of the malaria epidemic, strong gains have nonetheless been made against the disease. The malaria mortality rate has decreased by about 70% in two decades thanks largely to very efficient testing and treatment, including at the community level.