ADDRESSING PUBLIC HEALTH
TACKLING PUBLIC HEALTH IN MALAWI
Money granted through international aid and development is assisting Malawi in addressing issues of public health. After visiting the country in September 2013, the spokesman for Development and Foreign Affairs in Africa writes about the improvements, and what more can be done to strengthen ties between Malawi and the United Kingdom.
Lord David Chidgey Lord Chidgey is the spokesman for International Development and Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs in Africa for the Liberal Democratic Party in the House of Lords, United Kingdom.
After my return from a trip to Malawi in September 2013, I looked at the challenges faced by Malawi, and at strengthening links between the country and the United Kingdom. The key purpose of the trip –
organized by U.K. Charity RESULTS UK was to see first-hand how Malawi is providing health care for its citizens and how the country is using the money granted through the U.K. international aid and development programme. Thanks to support from partners
like the U.K., Malawi has made significant progress towards tackling its pressing health concerns. Vaccination rates for children under the age of five are at 97 per cent – one of the highest in the region – and the country has decreased tuberculosis (TB) infections by 28 per cent, with deaths from the disease falling by 20 per cent since 2003. Despite this success Malawi
continues to face real challenges in 50 | The Parliamentarian | 2014: Issue One
and mental development resulting from malnutrition in the first 1,000 days of life. During my trip, I visited some of the
Lord David Chidgey
health care provision. The country has very few doctors, hospitals and clinics, with one doctor often serving a population of 300,000. Due to issues of poverty and a
large rural population, Malawi still has high death rates from preventable diseases like Malaria and HIV as well as severe malnutrition in the under- fives.
Almost half of all toddlers suffer from “stunting”, a restriction in growth
projects being introduced attempting to tackle the pressing health concerns. These included the Martin Preuss TB/HIV integrated treatment clinic, where such diseases are being tackled in combination. Despite being regarded as a disease of the past, TB still claims 1,400,000 lives worldwide every year, mostly among the poor and vulnerable. This is despite the fact that the disease is preventable and treatable, with a course of antibiotics costing just $20. TB and HIV interact with one another to deadly effect with HIV positive patients up to 30 times more likely to catch TB, and one in four AIDS related deaths worldwide believed to be due to TB. It was uplifting to see the
great work going on at the Martin Preuss Centre to integrate TB/HIV treatment. Clearly the response to
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