Malawi: Expanding Rollout of Anti-AIDS Drugs

Malawi is expanding its rollout of antiretroviral drugs to reach at least 70,000 HIV/AIDS patients by the end of the year, a jump of nearly 35 percent, Biswick Mwale, executive director of Malawi's National AIDS Commission, said Thursday. Currently, 46,000 patients receive free ARVs, up from 4,000 two years ago, but still short of an estimated 150,000 people who need treatment. Malawi's free ARV program, launched in 2004, receives $196 million from the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. Drug-dispensing outlets will expand from 87 to 126 nationwide, including hospitals serving the army and the police, populations hit hard by the epidemic. Mwale said HIV testing figures have doubled to 500,000 in the past two years. "It is encouraging and we are making good impact," he said. Some 900,000 Malawians have HIV/AIDS. According to UNAIDS, the prevalence rate is 14 percent. The pandemic in the country has cut life expectancy to 36; 85,000 people die of AIDS-related disease every year.

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