Treatment, Care and Support

The HIV and AIDS Treatment and Care and support programme in Malawi has been one of the most successful programmes in the Southern Africa region. Since the inception of the programme in 2003, the number of clients that have been put on treatment has been increasing every year. The treatment regimen has also been changing based on the recommendation from the World Health Organization. The number of people starting ART will continue rising in the foreseeable future since Malawi has adopted the 90-90-90 treatment targets in order to significantly reduce HIV infections by the year 2020. These treatment targets states that by the end of 2020, Malawi will have:

• Diagnosed 90% of all people estimated to be living with HIV.
• Started and retained on ART 90% of those people diagnosed with HIV.
• Achieved viral suppression for 90% of the patients on ART.

According to the National Strategic Plan, reaching these ambitious targets will result in 760,000 (73%) of the projected 1,042,000 PLHIV being virally suppressed, leading to a significant reduction in sexual and vertical transmission of HIV at population level.

Among others, these results will be achieved by a continued scale-up of ART, with maximum coverage of Option B+ and targeting geographical areas with lower coverage.