UN Special Envoy for AIDS in Africa Stephen Lewis has expressed confidence in Malawi reaching its target under the World Health Organisations (WHO) plan to provide treatment to a lot more people by 2005.
In terms of the WHO “three by five” plan, Malawi should have 44.000 people on antiretroviral (ARV) therapy by June 2005, UNAIDS country coordinator Erasmus Morah told IRIN.
Lewis wrapped up his visit this weekend and was generally positive about the Southern African countrys efforts to roll out ARV drugs.
– Essentially, after having a number of high level meetings, conducting field visits and discussions with technical officers and the UN family, Lewis believes that it is possible that Malawi can reach the “three by five” objective of putting 44.000 people on treatment by June 2005, and 80.000 by the end of the 2005,” Morah said.
The only obstacles to Malawis rollout were a shortage of human resource capacity in the health sector and problems with the supply of drugs.
Morah said Lewis had seen that “people are queuing to be treated, so if the drugs are there the country will be able to put a lot more people on treatment”.
Lewis stressed that “Malawis human resource capacity crisis in the health sector has to be addressed – Malawi recently put together a proposal aimed at capacitating the health sector to the tune of 273 million US dollar over the next six years”.
The country is currently at the bottom of the health sector capacity scale in Africa.
The UK Department for International Development (DFID) has already agreed to support this effort “to the tune of 100 million US dollar, and members of the Malawi Global Fund committee have agreed that up to 40 million dollar of the Global Fund grant (of 196 million dollar) will go towards capacity building, if the country coordinating mechanism agrees,” Morah explained.
Much of the human resource plan focussed on retention schemes that would increase the allowances being paid to certain categories of health staff by between 50 percent and 100 percent.
– If the human resource issues start being addressed, Lewis position is that Malawi should have no problem putting 80.000 people on treatment by end of 2005, he added.
Malawi has plans to roll out ARV treatment in 54 locations by June next year.
– They are ready to go to 30 of those locations as we speak, but what is holding it up now is the shipment of drugs. The rollout has commenced in six locations and we are hoping to reach 20 by end of November, with the next shipment of drugs expected this month, Morah said.
Lewis also highlighted the plight of Malawis rising number of orphans and vulnerable children (OVC), and Morah noted that President Bingu wa Mutharika was set to launch the first national plan of action on OVC later this month.
– The budget for this plan is in the neighbourhood of 168 million US dollar – it is the first comprehensive look at the OVC problem, said Lewis.
Kilde: FN-bureauet IRINnews
