Malawi / APZU
The situation in Malawi
Located in southeastern Africa, the small landlocked nation of Malawi has over 13.6 million people – 85 percent of whom live in rural areas. Lake Malawi, the third largest lake on the continent, occupies about one fifth of the Pennsylvania-sized country, with rocky plateaus, narrow valleys and grassy plains rolling over the rest.
Malawians are among the poorest people in the world. More than 75 percent of the population lives on less than $2 a day, and the U.N. Development Program’s Human Development Index ranks the country near the bottom – 171 out of 187 countries.
Poor access to health care, low levels of education, infectious diseases, environmental destruction, and malnutrition plague the country. Infant, child and maternal mortality rates are among the highest in the world. More than one in ten Malawian children dies before reaching the age of five. And Malawian women face a 15 percent chance of dying as a result of complications from pregnancy or childbirth.
Malawi suffers one of the world's highest rates of HIV infection. Many estimates put the infection rate at over 14 percent of the adult population, with rates creeping up to 30 percent or higher in some areas. AIDS kills an estimated 85,000 Malawians each year, all of which has left 700,000 to 1.2 million orphans. Because of these crises, the median age in Malawi is 17, compared to 37 in the U.S.
Learn more about the history of Malawi.
PIH's work in Malawi
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In 2007, PIH (Abwenzi Pa Za Umoyo in Chichewa) began working in partnership with the Malawian Ministry of Health in the rural Neno district to provide comprehensive, community-based care to a catchment area of about 120,000 people.
At the time, Neno did not have a district hospital, and its 10 health centers had fallen into disrepair.
During the projects first three years, PIH/APZU completed construction of the state-of-the-art Neno District Hosptal, and renovated seven community health centers. PIH/APZU currently employs a staff of over 1,350, including 700 community health workers who serve as a vital link between their villages and the health centers.
Catchment area
MDR-TB: 2.7 million, Neno District: 125,000
Neno District Hospital
Lisungwi Community Hospital
Health Centers: Matope*, Chifunga, Nsambe*, Magaleta, Luwani, Zalewa, Midzemba
Training Centers: Matadani, Ligowe, Nkula, Neno Parish
* Denotes a private facility
Key programs at these centers include treatment and prevention for complex diseases such as HIV and tuberculosis, as well as initiatives to reduce incidence of malaria and maternal mortality rates. PIH/APZU also supports school children, and runs adult-literacy classes and job skills training and employment programs (including carpentry, tailoring, knitting, farming, and running a local restaurant) to help patients and their families lift themselves out of poverty.
Brining nutrition to those in need
In Spring 2011, PIH’s Neno District Hospital admitted its first patients into a new Nutritional Rehabilitation Unit (NRU) — the first of its kind in the rural Neno district of southern Malawi.
In Malawi, PIH hires and trains workers to raise, collect and distribute food.
In Malawi one in five children under the age of five is moderately or severely underweight, and over half suffer from moderate or severe stunting due to chronic malnutrition. The new NRU is part of PIH’s comprehensive Community-based Therapeutic Care, which identifies and treats malnourished children under the age of 12 in the district, as well as pregnant and lactating mothers.
Other components of the CTC — community outreach, out-patient therapeutic care, and supplementary feeding — bring services even closer to patients, allowing for better access to health care for those most in need.
Preventing deaths from pregnancy and childbirth
The average woman in Malawi has five children, and almost half of these children are delivered at home. Home deliveries in rural Malawi are risky. When pregnancy complications requiring emergency obstetric care such as cesarean sections occur, health facilities can be hours or even a day’s journey away.
To prevent maternal deaths, PIH is working to support a community-based model which supports women in their reproductive health choices, this in conjunction with a strong clinic and hospital-based women’s health program. The programs are working to focus on antenatal care (as is standard in most public health programs) and on emergency obstetric care; as well as transport to a facility for women in labor, skilled attendants to perform deliveries, and blood and surgical services for when complications occur.
Read how PIH saves mother's lives.
Learn more about PIH's work in Malawi.
Contact the Malawi team: malawi@pih.org
