Plagues,
Pestilences and Diseases
Over 380,000 Malawians have HIV/AIDS as epidemic rapidly
expands
by Staff Writers
Blantyre (AFP) Oct 5, 2011
AIDS-ravaged Malawi has 383,000 people on free anti-retrovirals
(ARVs), up from 5,000 when the programme started seven years ago,
health authorities said Wednesday.
"I am pleased to report that 74,000 new patients were put on
anti-retroviral therapy putting the number of patients ever
started on ART at 383,000," Thomas Bisika, director of the
National AIDS Commission said in a statement.
Around 14 percent of the country's 13 million citizens are
infected with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, according to
official figures.
Malawi launched the free anti-AIDS drugs scheme in 2004 with 5,000
initial beneficiaries.
The poor southern African nation has 90,000 new annual infections,
largely among young people and women, according to UNAIDS.
The World Bank gave Malawi a $30-million (20.3-million-euro) grant
two years ago to prevent HIV infections and speed up the roll-out
of free drugs.