A World report released in London’s Lancet magazine for this month says Malawi’s bold steps in HIV prevention could be hampered by funding difficulties following its recent battles with donors.

The report in the magazine dated July 16-22 whose special focus is on HIV/Aids, commends Malawi for taking bold steps to among others prevent mother to child transmission of HIV.

The Malawi government the report says, would be giving all HIV-positive pregnant women free ARVs irrespective of their CD4 cell count and that this decision, marks an unsual stand by a developing country against World Health Organisation(WHO) guidelines for treatment of the disease.

Last year, WHO lowered the point for starting ARVs when an HIV positive patient’s CD4 cell count dropped below 350.
However after discussions, the Malawi health officials decided that following such guidance, only a few HIV positive pregnant women would have access to reliable CD4 testing as well as getting treatment.

However, the path to this policy is set to suffer following disagreements between Malawi and its donors among them Britain.

Britain is one of the major donors when it comes to supporting heath services and this new initiative by the government to treat all HIV positive pregnant women, could suffer the funding injection.

Among the donor strike which Malawi has suffered recently, according to the report, include UK Department for International Development, the country’s largest bilateral donor with US$ 121 million donated per year, suspending future funding after president Bingu wa Mutharika expelled its high commissioner and World Bank withholding US$40 million in funding pending reviews.

However, Secretary for Health Willie Samute is quoted as saying that the HIV programme will not be affected by the troubles with donors.
“We will move ahead on this – there’s no question, it’s a priority,” he said adding that the first year was estimated to cost US$ 5 million.

It report further reveals that the cost reflects the Ministry’s decision to use ARVs that have few side effects and cost US$176 per person per year, compared with US$ 65 for the most common first line ARVs.

But despite this, some officials in the Ministry said they could do much more to protect mother and child, and the treatment of all HIV positive women but rather the biggest challenge would be funding.

Partners have since urged Malawi to closely evaluate the programme.

Around sub Saharan Africa, more than 400 000 babies are born with HIV every year. And worldwide around 350,000 women die at the late stages of pregnancy and during child birth, including thousands who have Aids related complications.