By Mwai Kumanda

Lilongwe November 7, Mana: Principal Secretary in the Ministry of Health, Dr. Samson Mdolo, says it is encouraging to see Malawi making strides in the fight of HIV and AIDS.

Speaking on Wednesday, in Lilongwe, during a three-day Joint Annual Review (JAR) meeting, Mdolo said, there is much progress in the fight against HIV/AIDS in the country.

“We have made a good progress as a country as far as the fight against HIV and AIDS is concerned. Although there are some difficulties, in the country in fighting the pandemic, but we are making so much progress and our goal is to reduce new infection incidences by 2030.

“As a country we have managed to achieve the new UNAIDS 95-95-95 targets, though when we dig deep we still have some sections, we are not doing so well. That is the reason why we have organized this annual review meeting, in order to still assess the progress,” he said.

Mdolo also commended the government of Malawi for showing commitment to the fight by increasing 2024/2025 financial budget for the health sector, saying it is only health people who can positively contribute to the development of the country.

Chairperson of Health Donor Group, Susanne Meltl, congratulated Ministry of Health for doing well in fighting the HIV/AIDS pandemic and pledged that the donor community will continue to support the ministry in its operations.

“As a donor community, we just want to congratulate the Ministry of Health and National Aids Commission (NAC) for conducting a joint review meeting for the first time.

“And we are delighted to see that there has been a progress towards achieving the 95-95-95 targets and we would like to encourage the ministry to further put efforts, and they will have our support,” she said.

In 2022/23, the prevalence of HIV among adults in Malawi was 8.9 percent, which corresponds to approximately 946,000 adults living with HIV. HIV prevalence was higher among women (10.5%) than among men (7.1%).