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- Ministry of Health, Malawi gets to grips with HIV/AIDS
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Ministry of Health, Malawi gets to grips with HIV/AIDS
The AIDS epidemic is responsible for eight deaths every hour in Malawi. Out of a population of nearly 14 million, almost one million people in Malawi were living with HIV at the end of 2007. AIDS is the leading cause of death amongst adults in Malawi, and is a major factor in the country's low life expectancy of just 43 years. The fight against HIV/AIDS made little progress during the Banda years, where any discussion of sexual behaviour was frowned upon but since parliamentary democracy was restored in 1994, the climate of opinion has changed radically and the fight back has begun in earnest. Malawi now has a range of measures in place to help reduce the spread of HIV and improve access to testing and treatment. As the Ministry of Health works alongside NGOs to improve the situation, uptake of VCT has significantly increased and access to prevention of mother-to-child transmission service is improving.
Fighting HIV/AIDS is a complex issue and the different interventions each need careful explanation if they are to be successful. As part of its ongoing communications strategy, the Malawi Ministry of Health ordered 4 AV DRUM 21 mobile campaign vehicles from AgriVisual. As a poor country with few resources, these vehicles have had to work hard to justify the investment.
The Ministry decided that the best way the vehicles could be used is to support awareness raising campaigns. A night time screening with AV DRUM 21 can easily entertain a crowd of over 2000, so this made the vehicles a particularly cost effective way of communicating with the community en mass. Later on community health teams used vehicles as mobile "classrooms" when working with smaller groups.
As usual, operators were trained on how to get the best out of the equipment and how to make sure it lasts. They also were trained in the basics of video production, so that material could be gathered in the field for later incorporation into videos, that show that it is possible to do something about the HIV/AIDS scourge.