Malawi’s award winning health journo speaks out

ACCEPTANCE SPEECH BY MALAWIAN JOURNALIST BRIAN LIGOMEKA, THE 2008 WINNER OF THE STOP TB PARTNERSHIP AWARD FOR EXCELLENCE IN REPORTING ON TUBERCULOSIS, PARIS, OCTOBER 16, 2008

 
Distinguished Guests, health experts, activists, fellow media practitioners, ladies and gentlemen:

 
First of all, I would like to take this opportunity to thank Lilly MDR-TB Partnership Team, the sponsor of the Stop TB Partnership Award for Excellence in Reporting on Tuberculosis for funding this initiative. This award is a great recognition, motivation and encouragement for those of us who report on lung health issues.

 
I think the big news tonight is not that a Malawian journalist has won an international award for his excellence in reporting TB, but that those of us who specialise in health reporting are renewing our commitment to continue reporting aggressively on TB issues till this lung disease is eliminated on the face of the earth.

 
I do not look at my feat in this prestigious competition as a personal achievement, but I believe this is a professional victory for all the journalists who report on TB issues. All health journalists cannot be winners at the same time and hence my victory is also theirs; as we all share the same vision of fighting lung diseases through what we know best – mass communication.

 
I would like to appeal to all my colleagues in the media profession to continue working hard as the war against lung diseases ought to be sustained because there is a new twist to this war which is the emergence of HIV and AIDS on the scene. The HIV/AIDS pandemic has drafted in TB as its leading opportunistic killer. In Africa and other developing countries, the twin epidemic of AIDS and TB has become a difficult problem to tackle because of poverty levels. AIDS fuels the progression of TB, so does poverty. A hungry person usually defaults TB medication hence risking developing MDR-TB. We are now talking of a vicious circle of AIDS, TB and poverty as each of these three fuels the progression of the other.

 
While health experts are using all sorts of medicines and vaccines to fight TB, let use our skills to sensitise the masses about all aspects of this preventable and curable disease.

 
Once again, I take this opportunity to thank Lilly MDR-TB Partnership Team for sponsoring this award which I accept with great pleasure. Thank you for listening and don’t stop fighting TB.

SHOULD PARLIAMENT APPROVE FUNDING FOR MALAWI’S STATE BROADCASTERS?

 

Denying state broadcasters funding is a threat to media freedom

 

BY BRIAN LIGOMEKA

  

The Constitution of Malawi guarantees the right to freedom of expression, media freedom, and access to information. Specifically, Section 35 of the Constitution states that “every person shall have freedom of expression,” while as Section 36 states that “the press shall have the right to report and publish freely, within Malawi and abroad, and to be accorded the fullest possible facilities for access to public information.”

 

It is a pity that despite these beautiful constitutional provisions, freedom of expression and media freedom are compromised by a number of factors ranging from insult laws to hostile dictates from regulatory bodies such as the Malawi Communications Regulatory Authority and the Malawi Censorship Board.

 

The sad part of it is that the threats against media freedom continue to gain ground to the extent that Malawi is at risk of losing its envied position as one of Southern Africa’s most stable and open country. The risk comes as power-hungry politicians are increasingly using arrests, intimidation, lawsuits and archaic pieces of legislation against media practitioners to stifle press freedom and gag criticism. Such threats are resulting in media freedom is increasingly becoming a luxury rather than the right of people living in a democratic state.

 

While in the past the government and members of the ruling party were at the centre of accusations of violating media freedoms, this time around fingers have began to point at the opposition too. The opposition, taking advantage of its numeric strength in Parliament, is quickly establishing itself as the enemy of the media through a number of tactics one of which was their infamous rejection to approve the much-needed funding to state broadcasters.

 

I vividly remember that it was on September 11, 2007, when Parliament passed its K173 billion annual national budget with an allocation of only K1 each for Malawi Broadcasting Corporation (MBC) and Television Malawi (TVM), for their 2007/2008 financial year. The K1 allocation is nominal, to satisfy the law that make it illegal to provide no allocation at all without holding a vote.

 

The opposition legislators claimed that the two state broadcasters were being used as propaganda tools by the current government and ruling party to castigate the opposition.

After unleashing that blow at the state broadcasters last year, one would have expected the opposition legislators to have been more rationale this year by pressing for ample funding to MBC and TVM but the opposite is true. The main opposition Malawi Congress Party has already threatened that the state broadcasters will not be funded. On June 2, 2008, MCP Spokesperson on Parliamentary Affairs Ishmael Chafukira said his party hoped that, having been denied funding in 2007, the MBC and TVM would endeavour to improve, but that, instead, the practices of the two broadcasters have deteriorated and, therefore, they do not deserve support from the national budget.

 

Chafukira’s remarks, in my view is a reflection of how irresponsible the opposition in Malawi is, considering that despite the subvention MBC and TVM had been using its meagre resources to continue broadcasting health, agricultural, environmental and other social programmes. The remarks also reflect the fact that most opposition legislators are busy serving their political masters instead of serving the electorate who voted them into power. If the opposition were serving the electorate, they would have realised the importance of the state broadcasters to the masses.

 

I am fully aware that the state broadcasters are not supposed to serve the political interests of the ruling party neither are they supposed to serve the political interests of the opposition parties; but instead should be serving the interests of the public. The question to be answered is: “Aren’t the state broadcasters serving the interests of the public by broadcasting health, educational, agricultural, environmental and other social programmes?”

 

The mere fact that there are few programmes such as Makiyolobasi and Mizwanya that irk opposition politicians does not necessarily mean that MBC and TVM are not serving the public well. Does it really make sense to reject funding for the two radios just because of less than three or so programmes at the expense of over 100 ‘innocent’ ones?

 

I have heard much noise and an avalanche of criticisms against Makiyolobasi Programme which is broadcasted on MBC. Personally, I don’t see why the programme should drive the opposition politicians crazy. Makiyolobasi is not supposed to drive the opposition mad because the journalists behind its production discredit it by labelling it as a radio cartoon. If the programme was a reality one, the opposition politicians perhaps would have been justified to get annoyed, but the programme is just about cartoons. Even if Makiyolobasi was not a radio cartoon, why should some politicians cry foul when all the programme does it to replay the statements uttered by people in public and other privileged places where journalists are allowed access.

 

If an MP shouts Agalu inu (you sons of a bitch!) in Parliament, whose proceedings are live on air, should the MP the next day stand up and declare that MBC does not need funding just because the station has replayed his Agalu inu (you sons of a bitch!) statement in Makiyolobasi Programme? Likewise should a former president who took hours castigating his political opponents at rallies which were broadcasted live on air, took offence today just because the station which was airing the rallies live has decided to rebroadcast part of the speeches in some of its programmes. 

 

Instead of looking at Makiyolobasi from a negative perspective, it is time politicians from both political divide look at it from positive perspective. From a positive perspective, one can easily see Makiyolobasi as a programme which cautions people to be careful with their tongues and utterances. The programme also admonishes politicians to practice civilised politics. If for instance one politician never shouted “agalu inu” in Parliament, Makiyolobasi would not have been replaying that statement.

 

Having outlined the lessons people can learn from Makiyolobasi, I should however quick to point out that the programme has its own ethical shortfalls in the sense that it quotes most people out of context and is biased as it only expose the follies of those in opposition leaving those in government who, for instance, have the audacity to declare on the radio and TV that “ma Taiwanese achita bwino kupita kwawpo amatidyera agalu athu.” (We are happy that the Taiwanese are gone back as they were eating our dogs) So though MBC through its Makiyolobasi is acting lawfully by re-broadcasting statements of opposition politicians, it is unethical for MBC to be re-broadcasting them out of context.

 

In my layman’s understanding, while the station is not broadcasting speeches it recorded in the past, MBC is unethical for quoting the speeches out of context and presenting without balancing them – thus acting lawfully but unethically. Having made that clarification, it should be noted that the law does not state that when MBC and TVM conduct themselves unethically, then its punishment should be the freezing of its funding. It is the duty of MACRA and not opposition MPs to regulate what is aired or not.

It is also important to point out that when it comes to political coverage, MBC and TVM have been unethical for sometime. I recall during the Malawi Congress Party regime, the same John Tembo whose party is busy denying MBC funding used the same station to describe the then opposition politicians who campaigning for the introduction of multiparty democracy as abongololo (millipedes).

 

Just few years ago, it is also the same station from where we heard former president Bakili Muluzi declaring that “manja a John Tembo ngozaza ndi magazi.” Strangely enough, during MCP and UDF regimes despite the highest levels on unethical political coverage of events at MBC, Parliament never denied the state broadcasters funding. One, therefore, wonders why has all of a sudden unethical coverage of political events at MBC and TVM should be penalised or corrected through the rejection of funding. The paradox of it is that the same people who were using the state broadcasters unethically during their reigns are the one who are against funding MBC and TVM today.

 

I entirely agree with the Chairperson of the Media and Communications Committee of Parliament Berson Lijenda, who is also an MP for UDF party who condemned his fellow MPs saying by denying MBC and TVM funding, the legislators were actually punishing the listeners and the employees, but not the political gatekeepers of the two stations.

According to Lijenda, it is strange that his fellow opposition MPs do not want to take advantage of their numerical strength to push for the amendment of the Communications Act, which gives government power to control the public broadcasters. In Lijenda’s wisdom, the best way would have been to amend the Communications Act so that the management of the stations starts reporting to Parliament as is the case with other institutions such as the office of the Ombudsman.

 

But the MPs never bought Lijenda’s suggestion and the reason for rejecting Lijenda’s proposition is obvious – those in the opposition would like to misuse and abuse MBC and TVM when they spring into power in the future. They know that if they change the reporting line of MBC and TVM management from the executive to the legislature, they may not have that chance to use the same for their propaganda.

 

The opposition MPs ought to realise now that the freezing of funding to the two broadcasters has done more harm than good. Innocent MBC and TVM employees, most of whom are not behind the so-called Makiyolobatic and Mizwanyaic programmes are denied their right to receiving salaries in good time as the two radio stations are struggling to raise money for both their operations and wages. Nowadays employees of the state broadcasters receive their salaries late just because of the political selfishness of opposition MPs, who are receiving their remuneration in time from the government.

 

Furthermore MPs should realise that the broadcasters have no other alternative after getting only K1 in this year’s budget but to survive the financial heat by going into business full time at the expense of social responsibility. According to Information Minister Patricia Kaliati, the two institutions have intensified their marketing campaign by abandoning some of their social responsibility as they are focussing on business for survival.

 

As legislators are preparing to meet for the 2008/09 budget deliberation after the mediation talks are concluded, it is important for them to refrain from rejecting funding to the state broadcasters. The MPs should instead explore avenues that will enable two broadcasters to continue fulfilling their mandate to the public.

Despite their reservations on some programmes, the legislators should remember that MBC and TVM are the only two broadcasters with nationwide frequency coverage and hence play a big role in informing, educating and entertaining the public. If they are financially strangulated, the state broadcasters cannot carry out programmes for the public. Let legislators, media regulators and other stakeholders endeavour to create an environment for the two broadcasters to operate independently, without interference. That can only be done by funding MBC and TVM as rejection of subvention to the two institutions has not improved everything in the past year.

 

 

 

 

Don’t spend taxpayers’ money

in promoting hate journalism

 

BY PETER BANDA

 

Let me start by pointing out that almost every book of mass communication and journalism does not mince words when it comes to defining and describing journalism as the art of gathering and disseminating information accurately and professionally to the masses. This definition simply emphasizes the fact that reporting accurately is the only way of practising professional journalism, be it print, online or broadcasting.

 

In modern world, where the media is regarded as the fourth estate of government after the executive, the legislature and the judiciary, professional news gathering and dissemination is important in the entrenchment of democracy, development, politics, and economy.

 

As some media scholars have observed with its first obligation being to tell the truth, and its first loyalty being to the citizens, journalism plays an important role in society. Through a rigorous process of verification of facts, journalism serve as an independent monitor of power, while at the same time provides a forum for public criticism and compromise. Just like in many other occupations, professional integrity is the cornerstone of journalists’ credibility hence the need for journalists not just to commit themselves to ethical behaviour but to be practically ethical when executing their core duty of seeking truth and providing a fair and comprehensive account of events and issues.

 

Media ethics which guide journalists is very important because journalism has enormous influence on society and therefore ought to be practised in a responsible and accountable manner. It is only ethical journalists who understand that everything which a journalist does has an ethical dimension that succeed in their profession. While open societies and democracies, put much emphasis on press freedom, journalists should always bear in mind that press freedom has a twin partner in the name of responsibility and accountability. It is therefore dangerous for any journalist worth his name to be working while paying a blind eye to ethics.

 

It is interesting to note that the Media Council of Malawi Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct (1994) reading in part that “journalists have a responsibility to provide the public with accurate information.  They should also conduct themselves with propriety all times when performing their duties.”

 

It is a pity that despite the Media Council of Malawi Code of Ethics advocating for ethical and professional conduct some media houses have thrown their ethics to the dogs. Unfortunately, some of the media houses that have taken the notorious path of unethical journalism are state broadcasters Television Malawi (TVM) and the Malawi Broadcasting Corporation (MBC). This is contrary to their mandate of offering a form of public service broadcasting intended to serve the diverse needs of the viewing or listening public, as they receive a large chunk of their funding from state subsidies which is from the public who pay various taxes to government.

 

The rationale for giving subsidies to the state media is to allow them produce and broadcast articles that serve members of the public professionally and including those on social responsibility basis. Such programmes include those on religion, agriculture, health and education which cannot be produced without such subventions as the mass media marketplace has become tremendously competitive, and as such, it is difficult for a public service broadcaster to survive amongst commercial interests.

 

Regrettably, some of the new unethical and propaganda programmes that are being produced and broadcasted by the state media are not in public interest and do not in anyway reflect the needs and aspirations of Malawians. The programmes are pure propaganda material aimed at promoting the political interests of one political grouping while demonising political players. The contents of such programme have irked many people and stakeholders including the Malawi Communications Regulatory Authority, Malawi Electoral Commission, political parties, media scholars and professionals.

 

Just recently, the controversial programmes by the state broadcasters were also highlighted in pastoral letter issued by Catholic Bishops that they promote hate-filled messages. The bishops said they are concerned with some programmes on the state media and cited Makiyolobasi, Mizwanya and Kuganizira Dziko as some programmes that are contributing to “political intolerance and demonisation of certain individuals in our society.” The bishops in their Pastoral letter made this appeal: “We therefore call upon the concerned parties to consider seriously curtailing such programs or giving them a different direction and orientation.” But has the state media listened to the bishops’ appeal? The answer is a big no.

 

The above mentioned programmes which are one-sided slants continue to pour derogatory remarks, scorn and insults at the opposition leaders day in and day out creating an impression that they are political demons. All this is happening when Malawi is on the road to the 2009 general elections whose destination is that several aspirants including those in opposition will contest the polls. It is a known fact that the duty of the media—both public and private—is to ensure that contestants battle on a level playing field by giving their audiences balanced information to help them make informed choices and decisions, I am sorry to say this is not the case in Malawi. While Macra which regulates what should be aired and what should not has previously been swift to act on private radio stations for airing programmes perceived to promote hate messages, the broadcasting regulator has failed to take Makiyolobasi and Mizwanya sacred cows to task.

 

Even Parliamentary Committee on Media failed to bring to a negotiating table the management of the two state broadcasters, while it is common knowledge that Parliamentary committees usually summon organisations and government departments under their jurisdiction to appear before them to account for their activities and present their problems and successes. Unlike other government ministries, departments and statutory corporations which have been cooperating with various Parliamentary Committees, the state broadcasters have been rebuffing the Media Committee of Parliament with all sorts of disparaging and belittling responses.

 

Just imagine when the Media Committee of Parliament called the MBC, it received a note to say the corporation could not afford to travel to meet them since Parliament had failed to approve its subsidy.  MBC Director General Patrick Khoza said: “We told them that we have no resources to travel from Blantyre to Lilongwe to meet them as Parliament refused to approve our funding from government. I don’t know why they want to meet us; maybe they want to ask how we are starving.

 “The committee offered to fund the DG and his deputy but we told them that they have to fund us including the MBC board but even if they accept to do so, I don’t think they have any right to summon us. We have been operating on our own resources and why would they need us to account for that?” he wondered.

 

If Parliamentary Committee does not have a right to summon MBC management, then does that committee have a right to champion the need for MBC to receive funding from government? One thing that MBC management forgets is that whether they like it or not, it is Parliament and not the Executive that approves subventions to statutory corporations.

Honestly speaking, the state broadcasters which have been rebuffing the Parliamentary Committee on the Media should not expect backing from the same committee on the need to have their funding endorsed by Parliament.  Is it justified that state broadcasters should continue receiving funding from government yet they don’t want to submit reports to Parliament through the Media Committee of Parliament? Should the state broadcasters continue receiving funding so that they can produce hate programmes like Makiyolobasi and Mizwanya whose purpose is to soil the integrity of opposition figures?

 

The observation by many commentators is true that the state media has sunk to its lowest levels professionally as “bootlicking, gossip and the new format of shameful reporting have emerged at MBC.” Even the Media Council of Malawi once describing the controversial programmes as “deplorable and unethical” as programmes such as Makiyolobasi, Mpungwe Pungwe Pandale on MBC and Mizwanya fail to adopt a balanced approach in their presentations.

 

“The current programming is of course deplorable. It is not ethical, but this is a deep seated problem that we are working on,” Badwin Chiyamwaka was quoted as saying recently.

 

It is against this backdrop I feel that Parliament should continue rejecting votes for MBC and TVM until the two broadcasters divorce propaganda from its schedule of programmes. If they want to carry on with their propaganda, let them pay for the price by not receiving government subvention which is from the taxpayers’ money. It is immoral to continue funding stations that promote propaganda and hate speeches.

 

 

 Both articles first appeared in The Sunday Times of Malawi

NewMagic? HIV positive mum, but HIV negative baby

Despite being largely preventable, mother-to-child transmission of HIV accounts for 30 percent of all new infections in Malawi and is the second major mode of transmission after unprotected sex. But as BRIAN LIGOMEKA writes with several therapies available in clinics, HIV positive mothers now have the choice of delivering babies who are HIV negative.

While some people living with HIV are victims of self-stigmatisation and worry in Southern Africa’s nation of Malawi, 30-year-old Eliza Malanzo of Chikoja Village in Southern Malawi is a happy mother despite being HIV positive.

“I know I am HIV positive but that does not prevent me from being one of the happiest women in this village,” she says.
Eliza failed to hold back her tears of joy when in an interview she recounted how she managed to deliver an HIV negative baby despite her being HIV positive status.

According to Eliza, when she fell pregnant, she never bothered to go to hospital because she knew that traditional health attendants would help her deliver as had been the case with all her elder sisters. She however changed her plans later.

“I was forced to go to the hospital during the second month of my pregnancy. This was after I had developed persistent coughing, recurrent fever, chronic diarrhoea and skin rashes,” she said, adding: “When I was diagnosed HIV positive, I suggested that I should have an abortion for the fear that of transmitting the virus to the innocent baby, but I was told that it was illegal for me to have an abortion according to the country’s laws,” she explained.

Eliza disclosed that it was during the post-HIV testing counselling that she learnt of Prevention of HIV from Mother to Child Transmission (PMTCT) through the use of a combination of drugs.

“I accepted what was suggested to me, but honestly speaking I never believed that an HIV positive woman could deliver an HIV negative baby. I had never heard of such magic and as a matter of fact to me the whole concept of PMTCT was just a question of trial and error.

“I am now a very happy mother now because I delivered a very healthy baby who has been tested three times and all the tests have shown that my baby is HIV negative,” she explained beaming with happiness.

Eliza is a lucky mother considering the fact that although mother-to-child transmission of HIV is preventable, courtesy of available drugs such as nevirapine, zidovudine, didanosine and tenofovir, up to 30,000 babies in the country are still born with HIV.

According National Coordinator for PMCT, Michael Elia, government and other stakeholders in the health sector are executing various initiatives and interventions to make sure that all HIV positive pregnant women can smile like Eliza after delivering healthy babies.

“We have intensified our efforts in the administering of nevirapine and other drugs to pregnant women who are HIV positive. Nowadays those who are diagnosed with the virus are offered the opportunity to access nevirapine to prevent the transmission of the virus to the unborn babies,” he said.

According to Secretary for Nutrition and HIV/Aids, Dr Mary Shawa, by October 2007, over 160, 000 pregnant mothers had been tested for HIV and 13 percent of them were found positive.
She says nevirapine was administered to most pregnant women and the therapy was also extended to the babies after they are born,” she said.

The Ministry of Health is currently encouraging all pregnant women to go for HIV Voluntary Counselling and Testing (VCT) so as to safeguard their lives and that of their unborn babies. It is in that vein that government has formulated a bill, and plans to table a controversial bill in Parliament which would require pregnant women to undergo mandatory HIV testing. The proponents of the bill including Shawa have very good reasons for the introduction of such legislation, which is to reduce mother-to-child transmission, and on the other hand opponents of the proposed bill have also their own good grounds for opposing it. Their principal ground for opposing the proposed legislation is that it violates women’s rights to self-determination, privacy and confidentiality. It, however, seems that those against mandatory testing by concentrating on the rights of women, disregard the rights of the unborn baby.

The good news is that though some people are opposed to mandatory testing, the initiative is not completely far away from the current practice which is to routinely test pregnant women who attend antenatal clinics, unless they specifically ask not to be. The proponents of mandatory HIV testing for pregnant women are justified because without such intervention, the risk of such women passing on the virus to her baby is between 30 percent and 35 percent.

Although the issue of mandatory testing of pregnant women is under discussion while the routine tests are going on, the administration of nevirapine to willing mothers in most parts of the country is going on smoothly and improvements are being made. The sweet news is that in many clinics, health workers have already switched from a single dose nevirapine regimen to the more effective and WHO-recommended triple combination of antiretroviral therapy drugs to prevent mother-to-child HIV transmission. Currently, over 500 clinics are providing maternal services that offer PMTCT and government needs a pat on the back as it hopes to roll out the programme to all clinics by the end of this year.

Perhaps the question is: What problems are PMTCT facing?
According to Zomba-based Dignitas International, low male participation in the programme is one of the hurdles. The organisation’s head of mission Veronica Van Dam was recently quoted as saying that lack of interest by men in the programme was derailing efforts to scale it up.

“For effective PMTCT, the couple needs HIV Testing and Counselling so that the men should understand why women ought to be tested for HIV,” said Van Dam.

She said men needed civic education to appreciate the importance of testing their pregnant wives so that the unborn children are spared from HIV.

Eliza concurs with Van Dam on the importance of male participation in PMTCT. She says that when she was diagnosed HIV positive she urged her husband to go for VCT and her cooperation paid dividends.

“When I was told that I am HIV positive, my husband could not believe it. At first he was mad about it until I convinced him that he should go for VCT. He went for VCT and was found positive. He was not immediately put on ARVs because his immunity was still strong, but we were advised as a couple to be using condoms when having sex as I was on nevirapine,” she said.

Eliza said as a couple they followed all the pieces of advice they received from the hospital to the letter and the outcome was that she delivered a healthy baby.

“But delivering a healthy baby was not the end of the matter because the next challenge I faced was how to look after the baby as I was advised not to breastfeed my baby,” narrated Eliza.

She said the next step was to look for alternatives for breastfeeding and she now admits that safe infant feeding is one of the most complex aspects of MTCT prevention especially in a poor African country like Malawi where acceptable alternatives to breastfeeding are limited.

“I am happy that as a family, we managed to feed our baby formulas such as Lactogen and soy from shops. We also used to supplement such formulas milk from our own cows and goats,” she explained.

She said as a family, they were using the formulas to avoid transmission of HIV to the baby through breastfeeding. Eliza and her husband were just right as statistics from the Ministry of Health indicates that 10-20 percent of babies born without getting HIV from their mothers during breastfeeding.

Though HIV positive, Eliza has indeed every good reason to be happy because in her village it has never been heard of a woman living with HIV delivering an HIV negative baby. Actually, if all pregnant HIV positive women and their spouses can walk in the footsteps of Eliza, surely Malawi will register success story in PMCT as is the case with countries such as Botswana which has lowered the rate of mother-to-child transmission of HIV to less than four percent, coming close to developed countries that have almost eliminated paediatric Aids.

But if a village woman like Eliza can do it, why not the rest of the women countrywide. The question is why not? With various partnerships like the one which the National Media Institute of Southern Africa (Namisa) has forged with the United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef) to promote PMTCT, surely many pregnant women who are living with HIV can deliver health babies.

“PMTCT might sound like new magic in Africa, but it’s a workable possibility,” concludes Eliza.

New magic? HIV+ mum, but HIV negative baby

Despite being largely preventable, mother-to-child transmission of HIV accounts for 30 percent of all new infections in Malawi and is the second major mode of transmission after unprotected sex. But as BRIAN LIGOMEKA writes with several therapies available in clinics, HIV positive mothers now have the choice of delivering babies who are HIV negative. While some people living with HIV are victims of self-stigmatisation and worry in Southern Africa’s nation of Malawi, 30-year-old Eliza Malanzo of Chikoja Village in Southern Malawi is a happy mother despite being HIV positive.  “I know I am HIV positive but that does not prevent me from being one of the happiest women in this village,” she says.Eliza failed to hold back her tears of joy when in an interview she recounted how she managed to deliver an HIV negative baby despite her being HIV positive status. According to Eliza, when she fell pregnant, she never bothered to go to hospital because she knew that traditional health attendants would help her deliver as had been the case with all her elder sisters. She however changed her plans later.  “I was forced to go to the hospital during the second month of my pregnancy. This was after I had developed persistent coughing, recurrent fever, chronic diarrhoea and skin rashes,” she said, adding: “When I was diagnosed HIV positive, I suggested that I should have an abortion for the fear that of transmitting the virus to the innocent baby, but I was told that it was illegal for me to have an abortion according to the country’s laws,” she explained.  Eliza disclosed that it was during the post-HIV testing counselling that she learnt of Prevention of HIV from Mother to Child Transmission (PMTCT) through the use of a combination of drugs.  “I accepted what was suggested to me, but honestly speaking I never believed that an HIV positive woman could deliver an HIV negative baby. I had never heard of such magic and as a matter of fact to me the whole concept of PMTCT was just a question of trial and error. “I am now a very happy mother now because I delivered a very healthy baby who has been tested three times and all the tests have shown that my baby is HIV negative,” she explained beaming with happiness.  Eliza is a lucky mother considering the fact that although mother-to-child transmission of HIV is preventable, courtesy of available drugs such as nevirapine, zidovudine, didanosine and tenofovir, up to 30,000 babies in the country are still born with HIV. According National Coordinator for PMCT, Michael Elia, government and other stakeholders in the health sector are executing various initiatives and interventions to make sure that all HIV positive pregnant women can smile like Eliza after delivering healthy babies.  “We have intensified our efforts in the administering of nevirapine and other drugs to pregnant women who are HIV positive. Nowadays those who are diagnosed with the virus are offered the opportunity to access nevirapine to prevent the transmission of the virus to the unborn babies,” he said. According to Secretary for Nutrition and HIV/Aids, Dr Mary Shawa, by October 2007, over 160, 000 pregnant mothers had been tested for HIV and 13 percent of them were found positive.She says nevirapine was administered to most pregnant women and the therapy was also extended to the babies after they are born,” she said. The Ministry of Health is currently encouraging all pregnant women to go for HIV Voluntary Counselling and Testing (VCT) so as to safeguard their lives and that of their unborn babies.  It is in that vein that government has formulated a bill, and plans to table a controversial bill in Parliament which would require pregnant women to undergo mandatory HIV testing. The proponents of the bill including Shawa have very good reasons for the introduction of such legislation, which is to reduce mother-to-child transmission, and on the other hand opponents of the proposed bill have also their own good grounds for opposing it. Their principal ground for opposing the proposed legislation is that it violates women’s rights to self-determination, privacy and confidentiality. It, however, seems that those against mandatory testing by concentrating on the rights of women, disregard the rights of the unborn baby. The good news is that though some people are opposed to mandatory testing, the initiative is not completely far away from the current practice which is to routinely test pregnant women who attend antenatal clinics, unless they specifically ask not to be.  The proponents of mandatory HIV testing for pregnant women are justified because without such intervention, the risk of such women passing on the virus to her baby is between 30 percent and 35 percent. Although the issue of mandatory testing of pregnant women is under discussion while the routine tests are going on, the administration of nevirapine to willing mothers in most parts of the country is going on smoothly and improvements are being made. The sweet news is that in many clinics, health workers have already switched from a single dose nevirapine regimen to the more effective and WHO-recommended triple combination of antiretroviral therapy drugs to prevent mother-to-child HIV transmission. Currently, over 500 clinics are providing maternal services that offer PMTCT and government needs a pat on the back as it hopes to roll out the programme to all clinics by the end of this year. Perhaps the question is: What problems are PMTCT facing?According to Zomba-based Dignitas International, low male participation in the programme is one of the hurdles. The organisation’s head of mission Veronica Van Dam was recently quoted as saying that lack of interest by men in the programme was derailing efforts to scale it up.  “For effective PMTCT, the couple needs HIV Testing and Counselling so that the men should understand why women ought to be tested for HIV,” said Van Dam. She said men needed civic education to appreciate the importance of testing their pregnant wives so that the unborn children are spared from HIV. Eliza concurs with Van Dam on the importance of male participation in PMTCT. She says that when she was diagnosed HIV positive she urged her husband to go for VCT and her cooperation paid dividends.  “When I was told that I am HIV positive, my husband could not believe it. At first he was mad about it until I convinced him that he should go for VCT. He went for VCT and was found positive. He was not immediately put on ARVs because his immunity was still strong, but we were advised as a couple to be using condoms when having sex as I was on nevirapine,” she said. Eliza said as a couple they followed all the pieces of advice they received from the hospital to the letter and the outcome was that she delivered a healthy baby. “But delivering a healthy baby was not the end of the matter because the next challenge I faced was how to look after the baby as I was advised not to breastfeed my baby,” narrated Eliza. She said the next step was to look for alternatives for breastfeeding and she now admits that safe infant feeding is one of the most complex aspects of MTCT prevention especially in a poor African country like Malawi where acceptable alternatives to breastfeeding are limited. “I am happy that as a family, we managed to feed our baby formulas such as Lactogen and soy from shops. We also used to supplement such formulas milk from our own cows and goats,” she explained. She said as a family, they were using the formulas to avoid transmission of HIV to the baby through breastfeeding. Eliza and her husband were just right as statistics from the Ministry of Health indicates that 10-20 percent of babies born without getting HIV from their mothers during breastfeeding.  Though HIV positive, Eliza has indeed every good reason to be happy because in her village it has never been heard of a woman living with HIV delivering an HIV negative baby. Actually, if all pregnant HIV positive women and their spouses can walk in the footsteps of Eliza, surely Malawi will register success story in PMCT as is the case with countries such as Botswana which has lowered the rate of mother-to-child transmission of HIV to less than four percent, coming close to developed countries that have almost eliminated paediatric Aids. But if a village woman like Eliza can do it, why not the rest of the women countrywide. The question is why not? With various partnerships like the one which the National Media Institute of Southern Africa (Namisa) has forged with the United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef) to promote PMTCT, surely many pregnant women who are living with HIV can deliver health babies.  “PMTCT might sound like new magic in Africa, but it’s a workable possibility,” concludes Eliza.

Malawi: Fighting TB as part of the deadly trio

BY BRIAN LIGOMEKA

BLANTYRE (Malawi)– With graveyards fast becoming most frequently visited places for burying people dying of ‘prolonged coughing,’ a heightened sense of urgency surrounds efforts to rein in TB. But with the ravaging poverty, the advent of HIV and the abuse of drugs, is it possible to win the battle against TB, which is mistakenly seen as a death sentence for poor people with AIDS? BRIAN LIGOMEKA investigates.

35-year-old Nabanda Masinga fails to hold back her tears, when in an interview, she recounted the long and painful death of her husband.

“My husband died after a long suffering. Persistent coughing, recurrent fever, chronic diarrhoea, skin rashes, loss of weight, lack of appetite and night sweating tortured him during seven months of his illness,” she narrates while seated on the verandah of her house in Ndanga Village, Mulanje in Southern Malawi.

Nabanda believes that what killed her husband is self-stigmatisation and fear of unknown. She explains that her husband blatantly refused to go for TB diagnosis and treatment, when all the signs and symptoms he had were pointers that he was suffering from TB.

“The problem is that my husband believed that anyone with TB is HIV positive. As far as he was concerned it was a waste of time for a person suspected to be HIV positive to go for treatment as the AIDS-causing virus has no cure,” she says disclosing that her husband never went to hospital for either TB or HIV tests.

Nabanda reveals that she too developed similar signs and symptoms like those of her husband, but she took courage and went for both HIV and TB tests.

“I was diagnosed TB smear positive but HIV negative. Even after those results, I failed to convince my husband to go the hospital,” she explains.

Like all TB patients who seek early medical help, she was put on the Directly Observed Treatment Short-Course (DOTS), which obliges patients to take their medication in front of doctors or nurses for the first two months and continue on their own in the remaining six months.

Luckily enough for her she got cured and she is among the 600,000 Malawians who have been cured of TB between 1984 and 2007.

“I am a healthy person now. But I still weep for my deceased husband who died after refusing to go for TB treatment. If he had accepted to go for TB treatment, he would have been cured and would have been alive,” she says.

Nabanda is not the only one to lose her husband to TB as statistics from the Malawi National TB Control Programme shows that 3 out of 10 TB patients die of this curable disease because of their failure to seek early treatment. The programme’s director Dr Felix Salaniponi says self-stigmatisation coupled with ignorance is responsible for death among such TB patients.

According to Salaniponi, what in the past was a straightforward war against TB has become complicated following the emergence of HIV and AIDS. The marriage between TB and HIV has resulted in the general belief that all TB patients have HIV. The consequence of this wrong belief is that it is fuelling many cases to delayed TB diagnosis, as those with TB are afraid to be labelled as HIV/AIDS infected. Some like Nabanda’s husband have completely shunned treatment because of their failure to understand the facts about the twin epidemic of TB and HIV.

Such people fail to understand and appreciate that although TB is the leading killer of people living with AIDS, not all people with HIV/ AIDS die of TB. Regrettably many people dying of TB are classified as AIDS victims and this misconception masks the true and immediate cause of death. The confusion and stigmatization caused by the twin epidemic have several complications.

Firstly the significance of TB on AIDS is lost through classifying death as caused by AIDS because it is not a single disease. As a matter of fact, AIDS is a syndrome of many opportunistic infections, while TB is just leading opportunistic fellow.

Secondly by classifying death as being caused by AIDS, it makes people lose hope because AIDS is incurable while TB is curable even in individuals living with HIV.

“HIV/ AIDS has therefore complicated the fight against TB because it has increased TB cases and death rate. HIV/ AIDS has also increased the demand of resources in terms of human, financial and logistic in terms of coping up with this scourge,” says Salaniponi, adding that up to 77 percent of TB patients in Malawi are HIV positive.

TB, primarily an illness of the respiratory system spread by coughing and sneezing, is not only a health problem in Malawi but also in many developing nations. It kills nearly two million people a year worldwide.

Globally, there are fears that the disease will continue to be a nightmare because as former South African President Nelson Mandela said: “TB is too often a death sentence for people with Aids. We can’t fight AIDS unless we do much more fight TB as well.”

So the question is: How is Malawi tackling the twin epidemic of TB and Aids?

“We are tackling TB and AIDS using a collaborative approach. This entails that patients who present with HIV as a health problem are also screened for TB and patients who present with TB are also screened with HIV,” says Salaniponi.

“The TB patient by criteria is eligible for the provision of ARVs, therefore the TB patient receives ARVs,” he adds stressing that a person living with HIV who contracts TB actually gets cured of the respiratory disease.

Numerous studies carried out in the last few years show that preventive treatment of TB in people who are HIV positive helps them live longer. If these studies are to be believed, then one would expect AIDS mortality in a country with very good TB treatment coverage like Malawi to have been reduced greatly.

Unfortunately, the situation is exactly the opposite, and a lot of HIV positive people continue to die of TB infection. This begs the question: Can there be another factor that is contributing to TB treatment failure in HIV positive patients?

Experts say the answer is definitely yes.

MacDonald Masanza, a medical practitioner based in Malawi’s commercial city of Blantyre, says it is also very complicated to fight TB as some parts of the country are hostages to severe poverty.

He says most people are in awkward situations as they are facing triple epidemic of HIV, TB and general poverty.

“When poverty marries the twin epidemic of HIV and TB, the honeymoon is obviously disaster,” says Masanza.

He says it is difficult to win a war against TB through DOTS alone because in Malawi like in many countries in Africa, the disease is both a medical and social condition.

“TB has biological causes and social causes; biomedical cures and social cures,” he says, adding that the distribution of the disease, dynamics of transmission, access to and effectiveness of treatment are all determined by social context.

“TB cannot be either understood or adequately addressed when divorced from the social context,” he says adding that there is a need to address TB and HIV/AIDS together in the widest context for the most vulnerable in society.

Masanza says poverty and TB create a vicious circle in which poor people, plagued by hunger and are crowded into close, unhygienic quarters and are easy victims in an environment where TB flourishes.

He says once one is down with TB, their capacity to work is diminished, and in this way, illness and death from TB reinforces and deepens poverty.

“Poverty, TB and HIV/AIDS form a lethal combination, each speeding the other’s progress. HIV promotes rapid progression of primary TB infection to active disease. Poverty drives TB patients to default medication. People who have nothing to eat are reluctant to take drugs because they make them hungry. Patients who have no food don’t take treatment,” says Masanza.

In tandem with Masanza’s views are research findings by by Bertha Simwaka, a senior researcher at the Equi-TB Knowledge Programme in Malawi, who found that over 67 percent of deaths among HIV/TB-infected patients are due to treatment failure caused by lack of proper nutrition to support the immune system.

“A low socioeconomic status among the population, coupled with a poor healthcare system in general, is the likely explanation for high HIV mortality rates due to TB,” reads part of the research paper by Simwaka.

According to the study, a symbiotic relationship exists between TB and poverty. “New TB infection is not just the product of poverty, but also creates poverty,” reads the report of the study.

While Nabanda’s husband died after failing to seek early treatment, another man-made problem has emerged in Malawi which is derailing the fight against the lung disease. The case of 26-year-old Ellard Manda illustrates this new twist.

Manda is a miserable man who has written off his possibility of remaining alive as he strongly believes that it is just a matter of time before he departs this life.

“I have lost hope as I await my death. In December last year, I went for HIV and TB tests. I was diagnosed HIV negative, but TB positive. After the diagnosis, I was put on a standardised short-course chemotherapy regimen of six to eight months with direct observation,” he says.

Manda fears that he will die soon because despite successfully taking TB drugs by following all the prescriptions, the symptoms of the disease are refusing to disappear.

“My painful cough with thick, cloudy and sometimes bloody mucus still continues. When I cough, I have to endure painful rapid heartbeats. I still feel fever, chills, night sweats, fatigue and muscle weakness,” he moans.

Suspecting that the symptoms are pointers that he is HIV positive, he went for medical tests, only to be told that he is not living with the virus that causes AIDS.

“If I am not suffering from AIDS and yet TB drugs can’t cure me of this lung disease, then what am I suffering from?” was the question he posed to the doctors when he went to the hospital for the third time.

On his third visit to the hospital, medical doctors detected the stubborn monster that had been torturing Manda. The monster was no other than multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB).

After a brief chat with TB experts, Manda’s memory took him to four years ago when a sexually transmitted disease, he contracted during a one night stand affair drove him into the arms of unlicensed drug peddlers claiming to have a cure for his venereal disease.

“The drugs, I bought from the black market and took for thirty days managed to cure me of syphilis symptoms that had been bothering me. Since then it was my habit that every time, I suffered from syphilis or any sexually transmitted diseases, I simply rushed to the backstreet market to buy Rifina as treatment,” he confesses.

Manda now blames his misfortunes over the influx pharmaceutical TB medicines on the black market, which are mistaken for cures for sexually transmitted diseases.

“If I would not have used drugs being sold illegally on the black market, certainly I would not have suffered from this difficult-to-cure multi-drug resistant tuberculosis,” he says as he sobs.

The issue of drugs growing wings and flying out of government health institutions mysteriously, only to land on the black market for sale by illiterate and unlicensed vendors, is not a peculiar trend in health circles in Malawi. The trend is now raising eyebrows of authorities and the public as fatalistic consequences of abusing pharmaceutical drugs are emerging.

Salaniponi explains that the theft and abuse of drugs stolen from state hospitals are hampering the treatment of TB. “The stolen drugs are often used to treat ailments other than TB. The indiscriminate use of the medicines is leading to the development of MDR TB, which is very expensive to treat and due to scarcity of financial resources leads to death.”

He says it is a pity that the MDT is emerging because of people’s carelessness reflected in their reliance on stolen drugs. He also attributed the emergence of MDR TB to the failure of some TB patients to complete the courses of medication prescribed for them.

Some of the TB drugs that are commonly found on the black market are Rifina, Pyrazinamide, Ethambutol and Streptomycin. The abuse of these drugs make the management of MDR-TB complicated. Between 1995 and 2007, Malawi registered 82 MDR-TB cases and 41 of which died. Only eight of the remaining cases were on treatment as of December 2007.

“The difficult part of it is that it is expensive to treat people with MDR-TB because such patients need special (isolated) facilities. While it costs government US$80 to cure ordinary TB in one individual, it costs government US$6000 to cure MDR-TB in a single individual,” says Salaniponi.

With an estimated one million Malawians out of the population of 12 million living with HIV, according to UNAIDS statistics and another million facing food shortages this year (2008) according to UNICEF, can Malawi win war against TB, which is part of the deadly trio (of poverty, AIDS and TB)?

“Yes we will win the war against TB. We are actually winning,” says Malawi’s Health Minister Marjorie Ngaunje.

How?

“Malawi Government is committed to fighting TB, HIV/Aids and poverty,” says Ngaunje.

She explains that the country is addressing the problem of malnutrition among TB patients by providing them with fortified food once they are admitted to hospitals and even after being discharged from the hospital.

“It is actually a policy that TB patients who are on treatment get fortified food,” she said adding that a study at Thyolo Hospital in Southern Malawi showed that such food packages reduce premature deaths of TB patients caused by malnutrition by 50 percent.

The successful implementation of DOTS, the collaborative fight against TB and AIDS; the provision of fortified food to TB patients, have according to Ngaunje resulted in cutting down transmission chain and the reduction of death for TB patients in the last years.

Salaniponi concurs with Ngaunje that despite facing the triple epidemic of AIDS, TB and poverty, Malawi is a star performer in implementing DOTS.

“We are fighting the lung disease and the war on TB will easily be won, once many people are sensitized and have realized that TB is curable regardless of one’s HIV sero-status,” says Salaniponi.

He explained that Malawi Government is providing free ARVs to about 100,000 poor people and has at the same time instituted various interventions to frustrate the marriage of poverty to TB and AIDS.

“We are tackling the twin epidemic of TB and AIDS through collaborative approach which entails that patients who present with HIV are also screened for TB and those with TB are also screened for HIV,” he said.

He says by using DOTS in Malawi, there is evidence that the TB cases have not been increasing in the last three years and in some districts, they are actually on the decline,” says Salaniponi.

According to Salaniponi, between 1984 and 1994 there was an increase of TB figures from 5,000 to 19,000 reflecting a 300 percent rise while between 1994 and 2004 there was an increase from 19,000 to 22,000 reflecting a rise of 27 percent. But in recent years, from 2001 to 2007, TB cases have remained around 27,000.

“After effectively treating over 600,000 TB patients in the past ten years and Malawi being dubbed as a success story in implementing DOTS, the challenges of the triple epidemic are being overcome,” says Salaniponi.

This article first appeared in The Sunday Times of Malawi on January 20, 2008 and was also published on the paper’s website.

All rights reserved. If you wish to reproduce this article, write to brianligo@yahoo.co.uk

China dangles US$6 billion to Malawi in a cheque-book diplomatic tactic

BY OUR STAFF WRITER

 

BLANTYRE – In a typical cheque-book diplomatic style, Mainland (Communist) China has offered Malawi US$6 billion to severe its diplomatic ties with Taiwan.

 

To order this story e-mail: standardmedia2003@yahoo.co.uk

China dangles US$6 billion to Malawi in a cheque-book diplomatic tactic

BY OUR STAFF WRITER

BLANTYRE – In a typical cheque-book diplomatic style, Mainland (Communist) China has offered Malawi US$6 billion to severe its diplomatic ties with Taiwan.

To order this story e-mail: standardmedia2003@yahoo.co.uk

Africa is rich enough to eliminate its poverty

BY BINGU WA MUTHARIKA
Malawi’s State President

Africa is not a poor continent. Rather it is the people who are. The continent has the largest world deposits of diamonds, gold, coal, copper and manganese. It has large deposits of minerals, huge reserves of crude oil and natural gas and vast forests, fisheries and land for agriculture and cattle ranching.

Africans rank among the poorest in the world in the midst of plenty for three main reasons. First, since the early days of colonialism, there has been incessant plunder and exploitation of Africa’s resources by the developed world to the detriment of economic development in Africa.

Second, there is deliberate marginalisation of Africa in global financing, foreign direct investment and access to science and technological innovation that could have created new wealth for Africa.

In other words, African resources do not create new wealth or employment in Africa because they are not processed on the continent but are shipped to the industrialised countries in raw form.

And finally, most African governments have, so far, not taken concrete action to ensure that we change globalisation system in our favour.

We have not developed home grown strategies to deal with our specific situations. In most cases, we have depended on “surrogate economists” to advise us and ended up with wrong diagnoses, wrong prescriptions and hence wrong results.

Africa must agree on economic strategies and technological innovations that are tailored to respond to the challenges of poverty alleviation and help to bridge the “technology divide” between industrialised and developing nations.

These measures must prevent the existence of extreme poverty amidst abundant wealth; hunger and malnutrition amidst food surpluses; diseases and death amidst breakthroughs in medical and health sciences; and ignorance amidst phenomenal advancements in information and communications technology.

Malawi is responding to the challenge of poverty through a variety of measures including implementing its home grown strategies and taking full ownership of its economy and destiny.

During the past three years, Malawi has beaten all odds and introduced its own “Green Revolution”. It has implemented a successful agricultural subsidy programme that enabled the country to move from chronic food shortages, famine and malnutrition, to huge food surpluses.

As a result, Malawi has independently been rated among the 12 best managed countries in Africa.

The country has also moved from rampant corruption to a well-managed economy with a high rate of economic growth; and it has empowered the poor urban and rural communities through affordable loans and public works programmes.

Malawi is meeting the challenge of poverty eradication through the Malawi Growth and Development Strategy (MGDS) that aims to provide a new window of opportunity for the Government, the private sector and the donor community, to combine forces towards achieving sustainable economic growth and to alleviate poverty.

The Government has also decided to have a holistic policy framework that combines the management of consumption and public expenditure with a sound structure of production, manufacturing and income generation.

This not only takes care of the supply side of the economy through application of new technologies, but also changes the colonial economic framework under which we “produced what we did not consume and consumed what we did not produce”.

The Government has decided that to effectively reduce poverty, the Malawi economy must grow at a minimum annual rate of six per cent.

To achieve this, the MGDS has six key “priorities within priorities” that we know can pull the country out of the “poverty trap”.

The index has (1) agriculture and food security; (2) irrigation and water development; (3) transport and communications infrastructure; (4) energy and power development; (5) integrated rural development; and (6) management and prevention of HIV/Aids pandemic. We have also placed high priority on public health and education, especially science and technology.

We have given priority to investment in physical and social infrastructures such as roads, energy, telephone and communication networks, public health, education…to increase industrial production, manufacturing and trade.

As an integral part of this strategy, we have in place the Public Sector Investment Programme (PSIP) that aims to create a favourable and enabling environment for local enterprises to invest and create new wealth for FDI to flow into Malawi.

Malawi praises Madonna for adopting little David

BY OUR STAFF WRITER

Malawi Government has hailed international pop star Madonna for demonstrating that she is both a kind parent and has the welfare of orphaned children at heart.

“As government we believe Madonna deserves our praises for all the efforts she is doing to support orphans in Malawi. Her support and pledges truly reflect that she has the welfare of Malawian children at heart,” said Malawi’s Minister of Information Patricia Kaliati in an interview.

The minister was reacting to reports that the pop diva plans to work with luxury goods maker Gucci to raise at least US$2 million for orphans languishing in poverty in Malawi.

According to international news reports Madonna and the Italian firm have planned to host a dinner, a musical performance and a party on Feb. 6 next year which incidentally will mark the opening of Gucci’s shop.

Kaliati urged other international celebrities to emulate Madonna’s example by supporting orphans from poor African nations like Malawi.

“We know that Madonna has critics. Actually every celebrity has critics. But in terms of charity work, Madonna deserves praises even from her own critics. Just imagine she is running clinics and orphanages where government has failed to reach,” she said.

Kaliati however disputed reports that Madonna returns to Malawi this month to finalise the adoption process of David Banda.

“I don’t think those rumours are true. What I know is that Madonna will come to Malawi to finalise the adoption process in March or April next year,” said the Malawian minister.

Reports were recently rife that Madonna returns to Malawi this month. This was after Malawian Chief Welfare Officer Simon Chisale made the first of two scheduled home visits in September. He wrote a positive report about how David has bonded with his new family and this will be presented in court to back up Madonna’s application to adopt David.

Malawi government and High Court sources revealed a decision has been made to speed up the assessment period to finalise the adoption early this month.

But according to Kaliati, David Banda’s adoption cannot be speeded up as the law has to be followed to the letter.

The hope that Madonna will adopt the Malawian baby got a boost when Malawian President Bingu wa Mutharika recently threw his weight behind the adoption process.

“As far as I am concerned, Madonna’s adoption of a Malawian child, David Banda, is a very welcome development,” Mutharika said recently.

The Malawian leader said he had no problems in Madonna adopting some more children from Malawi as that gesture is an indicator that the international pop star has joined the war against HIV/Aids in Malawi.

“While many people have made their comments regarding Madonna’s adoption of the Malawian child, I have no problem with her kind gesture. As a matter of fact, we need more superstars to either adopt or support orphanages,” he said.

Mutharika said Madonna’s interest in Malawi was unique in the sense that he had not only adopted a child but she was also supporting a number of orphanages. SMS Features- Malawi

All rights reserved. If you want to reproduce this story, contact standardmedia2003@yahoo.co.uk

Over 100,000 Zimbabweans flee to neighbouring Malawi

BY OUR CORRESPONDENT

BLANTYRE – With Zimbabwe facing chronic food shortages and inflation pegged at almost 8,000 percent, over 100 000 Zimbabweans has fled to Malawi in search for food, employment and peace.

Civil society organisations in Malawi have warned the influx of Zimbabweans into Malawi might hurt Malawi’s economy as the foreigners will be scrambling locally available resources such as food and employment.

Institute for Policy Interaction (IPI) executive director Rafik Hajat said research by the civil society organisations have revealed that since the start of problems in Zimbabwe in 2000, over 100,000 people had fled that country to find solace in Malawi.

“The problem is that these people are not treated like refugees from the war-torn Great Lakes region. They are being absorbed into our societies,” said Hajat warning that if nothing was done to stabilise the situation, the number was likely to swell hence putting more pressure on Malawi.

Malawi’s Immigration Department however said it was difficult to quantify the figures of Zimbabweans who entered Malawi.

Meanwhile another civil society organisation, the Centre for Human Rights and Rehabilitation (CHRR) says a recent research shows that 42 percent of Zimbabweans flooding into the country are escaping economic hardships.

A research: ‘The displacement of Zimbabweans into Malawi and the Implications for Poverty Eradication Efforts’ conducted in April 2007 by the organisation further says 11.5 percent of Zimbabweans left because of political instability while 8 percent fled in fear of political persecution.

CHRR says its findings reveal that 52.4 percent of Malawians view the migration of the Zimbabweans as beneficial to the country, while 28.6 percent think the situation was negatively affecting the country due to increased prostitution and HIV prevalence rate.

The research reveals that Malawi businesses seem to be main beneficiaries as they are acquiring Zimbabwean goods on the cheap prices on the local market.

CHRR Programme Officer, Veronica Njikho said the migrating Zimbabweans have created immerse problems to Malawi citing the monopoly in getting employment favouring Zimbabweans especially in companies originally from Zimbabwe.

“The coming in of Zimbabwean companies has aggravated the problem as they are only employing their countrymen against the already increasing levels of unemployed in the country,” said Njikho.

He said some Zimbabweans were also obtaining counterfeit Malawian passports thereby denting the country’s image.

The Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition led the research with its regional partners; CHRR in Malawi and Southern Africa Legal Assistance Network of Zambia and the Botswana Centre for Human Rights with an objective of gathering information on the extent of displacement of Zimbabweans and the implications on poverty reduction strategy. SMS Features- Malawi

All rights reserved. If you want to reproduce this story, contact standardmedia2003@yahoo.co.uk