Skip to content

Malawi

I-TECH has worked for almost twenty years to support health systems strengthening and the national response to the HIV epidemic in Malawi through significant contributions to the development of a robust health care workforce that provides high-quality HIV prevention, care, and treatment services.

In Malawi, I-TECH works through the secondment of well-qualified, experienced technical advisors (TAs) in the Ministry of Health (MOH) and other institutions to provide technical assistance for development and implementation of the national strategic plan led by the Government of Malawi (GOM). I-TECH TAs play an important role in ensuring timely national HIV/TB response by supporting prevention and control across the HIV care continuum. Additionally, I-TECH TAs support and facilitate surveillance and M&E for HIV/TB programs. This assistance enables the MOH to collect and manage up-to-date data to inform evidence-based decision-making by GOM and partners.

I-TECH technical assistance to Malawi MOH also covers the implementation of national surveillance systems to improve the generation of high-quality epidemiological data. Surveillance TAs work together with their GOM counterparts to improve storage and transportation conditions for lab samples, train staff in analysis of surveillance samples, and increase the functionality of surveillance systems to generate reliable and accurate data. The principal surveillance projects I-TECH TAs support in Malawi are Birth Defects Surveillance and HIV Recent Infection Surveillance. Most recently, I-TECH TAs have been placed at Public Health Institute of Malawi (PHIM) to support GOM with its emergency response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Departments and units supported by I-TECH TAs include the National Tuberculosis Control Programme, Department of HIV and AIDS, Supply Chain of HIV Commodities, Monitoring and Evaluation of HIV Program Diagnostics, Reproductive Health Department, PHIM, National HIV Reference Laboratory, and the National Registration Bureau. I-TECH TAs also support clinical mentoring and M&E at Lighthouse Trust, a Center of Excellence for HIV care that was established in 2001.

Program Highlights

COVID-19 Sentinel Surveillance in Malawi
Despite establishing  COVID-19 monitoring measures within the existing routine national surveillance system and significant efforts to conduct testing, contact tracing, and case investigations, Government of Malawi institutions at both the national and district levels faced many challenges in mounting an effective response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The existing COVID-19 surveillance ...
Read More
HIV Drug Resistance Surveillance in Malawi
The World Health Organization recommends countries routinely implement nationally representative HIV drug resistance (HIVDR) surveys among people infected with HIV to measure the level of drug resistance. The results of HIVDR surveys are a critical component of HIV programs and can guide changes to pediatric and adult antiretroviral therapy (ART) ...
Read More
Using Project ECHO in Malawi
The Extension for Community Healthcare Outcomes (ECHO) Project® was developed by the University of New Mexico to improve care for underserved populations using a hub-and-spoke approach of knowledge-sharing by video-conferencing technology. The Lighthouse ECHO project provides a platform for sharing critical, timely, and life-saving information and data with health care ...
Read More
Birth Defects Surveillance in Malawi
Malawi is one of first countries in Southeast Africa to respond to the World Health Organization’s call for robust birth surveillance systems. Routine surveillance is essential for public health monitoring of pregnancy outcomes and birth defects, especially in high-HIV burden settings where women living with HIV initiate the use of ...
Read More
National COVID-19 Emergency Response in Malawi
In collaboration with the Malawi Ministry of Health (MOH) and Centers for the Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), I-TECH has supported the national COVID-19 response in Malawi since March 2020. Technical assistance has focused on laboratory capacity, supporting quality COVID-19 surveillance and data management, and implementing a COVID-19 population-based survey ...
Read More
HIV Recency Surveillance in Malawi
The International Training and Education Center for Health (I-TECH), in collaboration with the Malawian Ministry of Health (MOH) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, began implementing recent HIV infection surveillance in April 2019. The project aims to establish a surveillance system among persons newly diagnosed with HIV infection ...
Read More

Loading...