In 2017 nearly one million people living in Malawi had AIDS, for reference the population of Malawi is 18 million. People who were between the ages of 15 and 49 had almost a 10 percent chance of contracting the disease. HIV/AIDS remains one of the leading causes of death for women of reproductive age. Malawi has seen a significant reduction in new HIV infection cases and AIDS related deaths, however young women and adolescent girls remain the group with the highest burden of the epidemic, particularly in urban areas. The disease spreads not only through intercourse but also to children when a mother who is contracted gives birth or is breastfeeding. One of the reasons why the prevalence of AIDS is so high in Malawi is because monogamous relationships are not very common and neither is the use of condoms. Stigma is also a key barrier to treatment and information, particularly amongst young men.
Many efforts are being made to stop the spread, so are working but as of now progress is very slow. Since 2010 the newly infected cases rate has gone down by 50 percent, but this is the most dastic of all the changes. A combined effort is needed to stop the spread but the issue seems to be that everyone with the same goal of stopping the spread is not communicating with each other. One of the Millenium development goals, which ended in 2015, was to halt and reverse the spread of HIV/AIDS. Tips for how to achieve this goal were provided and some are being executed in Malawi.
Step number one of the Millenium Development Goals was to reduce HIV prevalence among people between 15 and 24 years old. People between the ages of 15 and 17 in Malawi are 50 percent more likely to get HIV/AIDS because of young marriages and early sexual activity. Step number two was to increase the use of condoms in high risk sexual encounters. The use of condoms in Malawi is widely accepted but not widely used, both the community and the Christian community consider the use of condoms appropriate. Population Services International is trying to increase usage amongst youths by introducing new condom packaging and design in response to the target populations aspirations. Not everyone in the community was happy about the approach that Population Services International took and complained that the packaging and billboard of the condoms was so sexually explicit that it lacked cultural sensitivity. The third step of the Millenium Development Goals was to increase the percentage of the population with correct knowledge about HIV/AIDS. As of 2017, 92 percent of pregnant women with HIV have access to treatment to prevent the further spread of HIV to their children and 71 percent of all people living with HIV in Malawi have access to treatment and medications.
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