Malawi faces an unacceptably high rate of new HIV infections and HIV-related deaths, including a high prevalence among women in urban areas in the populous South and Central Districts. Nearly, one million children and adolescents in Malawi have lost one or both parents to AIDS, resulting in a desperate need for HIV-specific health care and social services. Project HOPE Malawi is working to address the burden of HIV among priority, at-risk populations.

In 2016, we began implementing the USAID-funded One Community project, with the goal of mitigating the impact of HIV and preventing new infections among Orphans and Vulnerable Children (OVC), adolescents, and adults living in fishing communities. To date, more than 100,000 OVC and their caregivers have been reached by the program. The key interventions include:

• Increasing utilization of high-quality HIV prevention, care, and support services;
• Improving adoption of behaviors that reduce HIV transmission, acquisition and mitigation; and
• Strengthening capacity of Malawian organizations to lead, coordinate, and implement HIV prevention, care and impact mitigation responses.

Project HOPE also has substantial recent experience addressing tuberculosis (TB) in Malawi. We have worked to increase access to TB diagnosis through community collection sites, new testing technology, and improving TB treatment outcomes by conducting treatment adherence support.

Our History in Malawi
Since 1989, Project HOPE has worked in Malawi to support the Ministry of Health in improving child survival. In the 1990s, we implemented maternal and child health projects, and in 1996, Project HOPE expanded into HIV/AIDS work with workplace interventions, cross-border programs, and programs that address TB and HIV co-infection. Our previous programs have also improved malaria control and increased access to cervical cancer screenings.

Project HOPE has been supporting the National TB Program since 2006. Our programs have worked to improve case detection and treatment outcomes by training healthcare and laboratory workers, improving diagnostics, and increasing access to laboratory services. Mobilization activities have included training community volunteers and engaging community members.

In 2011, Project HOPE implemented the TB REACH Project to substantially increase detection of TB and drug-resistant TB among people living with HIV, utilizing the new diagnostic technology, GeneXpert. Traditional methods of TB diagnosis can be unreliable and take weeks to get results, particularly among people living with HIV and people with drug-resistant TB. GeneXpert conducts rapid molecular testing, providing diagnosis of TB and drug-resistant TB in a matter of hours.