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Case Study Brief: Health centre committees ensuring services respond to the needs of people living with HIV in Malawi - March 2015

Pays
Malawi
Sources
EQUINET
Date de publication
Origine
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Malawi is a low income country in southern Africa, with a high rate of poverty. Like many others in the region, the country is experiencing combined burdens of communicable disease, chronic conditions and maternal, neonatal and child mortality. In 2006, according to Ministry of Health data, HIV/AIDS was the leading cause of death, accounting for a third of all deaths, followed by respiratory infections and malaria. The Ministry of Health has overall responsibility for health services in Malawi, and provides 60 percent of services, together with the Christian Health Association of Malawi (CHAM) providing 37 percent, and private institutions providing 3 per cent. The public healthcare system is thus the main source of care for people, and within this the 414 government-run primary care health centres are the frontline services most commonly used by people, together with 138 health centres run by CHAM. Cases may be referred by these health centres to district hospitals and from there to central hospitals. Malawi supports primary health care (PHC) and community participation as key policy principles. Health centres provide outreach to communities and a number of community-based cadres support primary health care in the community. They include health surveillance assistants (HSAs), community-based distributing agents, village health committee members, and other volunteers mainly from non-governmental organizations (NGOs). While one HSA should serve about 1000 people, they are often more thinly spread. Each health centre should have a health centre advisory committee