MALAWI – Amref Health Africa in Malawi has reported significant progress in improving the health of local communities through public health interventions in the country.
According to Country Manager for Amref Malawi, Hester Mkwinda Nyasulu, the organization has reached over 100,000 people in 2022 alone, focusing on increasing the uptake of COVID-19 vaccines, improving access to improved water, sanitation, and hygiene services, and increasing access to sexual and reproductive health services, particularly among women and young people.
Amref Health Africa in Malawi has recently received US$28 million in funding from USAID to implement a five-year project, Momentum Tikweze Umoyo, aimed at reducing maternal, newborn, and child morbidity and mortality in five districts.
The project is being implemented in collaboration with six consortium partners; WaterAid, D-Tree International, Youth Wave, Family Planning Association, Emmanuel International and Family Health Services (FHS).
“At Amref our vision has always been to create lasting health change in Africa and this year, we are proud of the work that we have done here in Malawi specifically on helping government increase uptake of Covid-19 vaccine,” Country Manager for Amref Malawi, Hester Mkwinda Nyasulu, said.
“In 2022, through our Vaccine Equity project, we managed to contribute to that campaign that resulted in the vaccination of about 98,000 people in Machinga.”
“Our efforts contributed to the increased vaccination coverage in Machinga from 3.9% in March 2022 to around 58% in November. And in addition to that we are also supporting the management of COVID-19 Vaccination Centres together with other partners under the Saving Lives and Livelihoods (SLL) project.”
Nyasulu also highlighted the organization’s efforts to eliminate violence against women and girls, including sexual and gender-based violence and harmful practices.
“We are also proud of the work we are doing in eliminating violence against women and girls including Sexual and Gender Based Violence and Harmful Practices through the Spotlight Initiative project which we are implementing in Machinga with support from UNFPA,” he said.
“Through this project we managed to support 231 adolescent girls, who dropped out of school, to go back to school. We also supported seven women affected by fistula for repair.”
Nyasulu added that those are just some of the achievements that they have registered in 2022 and all of them would not have been possible without the support of their donors and partners.
“As Amref our interventions focus much on the highest-risk populations and low-resource settings,” he said.
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