According to the statistics from the National AIDS Commission (NAC), Malawi is one of the countries worst hit by the HIV/AIDS epidemic with an infection rate among the child-bearing age group of 14.4%. Worse still 46% of new HIV infections occur among the youth aged 15-24 with 60% of them occurring among girls.

With these staggering figures in mind, NAC in partnership with Banja La Mtsogolo (BLM) came up with a programme that would see ten (10) BLM Centres in the southern region offering free HIV Counselling and Testing (HCT) services to the Malawi population.

The BLM clinic and outreach network already makes a significant contribution to health services in Malawi through high quality Family Planning services, and STI management among other key health services. BLM’s expertise in health service provision serves as a good platform for HCT service delivery and against this backdrop, BLM is taking the opportunity to integrate the HCT service in the clinics.

 “In 2005 a total of 1,141,880 clients received various services from BLM and, Family Planning accounted for 54% of the services sought while STI treatment was at 9%. This suggests that almost a quarter of the clients in BLM are potential beneficiaries of the HCT programme” said BLM Management.

Before partnering with NAC, BLM started offering HCT Services in the Northern Region of Malawi in three of its centres with funding from Japanese International Corporation Agency (JICA).

Commenting on this new development, BLM’s Technical Advisor on Health Linely Vinyo said that the integration of HCT services in BLM centres helps counter the stigma that is usually associated with clinics or centres that solely provide such services.

 “One can visit the BLM centre for a wide range of reasons, be it for general curative service, family planning or even HCT services. This is the beauty of our integration”. There are plans to integrate HCT services in all BLM’s clinics by the end of 2007.

By Felistas Sibweza

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