WAD 2014 HIV in Mozambique, S Africa, Malawi

The Beira corridor is a strip of land running from the Indian Ocean port of Beira, Mozambique's second city, to Zimbabwe’s eastern border and up to Zambia and Malawi, all three land-locked countries. Mozambique’s mining boom has attracted migrant workers and sex workers from the subregion, two “key populations” particularly vulnerable to infection by HIV. MSF is providing tailored services for them in an effort to curb transmission of the epidemic.

---

Massively hit by the HIV virus, the Thyolo district of Malawi was introduced to ARV in 2003 with more than 57.000 patients, 38.000 of them are still alive and on monitored therapy. ARV consists of the combination of at least three antiretroviral (ARV) drugs to maximally suppress the HIV virus and stop the progression of HIV disease.
It's now thirty years since the discover of the virus who caused the death of millions of people worldwide. According to Dr Eric Goemaere, MSF’s HIV referent, "The progresses made in the fight against HIV in just thirty years are remarkable: putting 13.6 million people on lifelong treatment, most of them in resource-poor countries, and keeping them on treatment for life on treatment is an overwhelming task, at a scale never achieved by public services before."
Despite the rapid scale-up of antiretroviral therapy (ART), patients still encounter barriers accessing treatment. At the same time health systems struggle to provide care to the growing number of patients on ART.
A number of clinic and/or community based strategies, such as a decentralisation of services to health centres and health posts, providing longer drug supplies to patients and drug refills through fast track systems, adherence clubs and community distribution points, have been implemented to reduce the burden on health workers and patients.

MSFSTO890

Linked assets