Ministry of Health, in collaboration with the United States (US) and President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) have today released a report on the Malawi Population-based HIV Impact Assessment (MPHIA 2020-2021) survey.

The survey was a household-based national survey among people aged between 15 and above.

The goal of the survey was to assess the status of the HIV epidemic in Malawi as well as the coverage and impact of HIV services at the population level and to characterize HIV-related risk behaviors using a nationally representative sample.

A total of 15,339 households representing 91.7 percent of the households in Malawi participated in the survey.

According to the summary, “The Malawi Population-based HIV Impact Assessment (MPHIA 2020-2021) was a household-based national survey among adults (defined as individuals aged 15 years and older) conducted from January 2020 through April 2021 to measure the impact of the national HIV response. (Note that there was a pause from April 2020 until March 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.) MPHIA 2020-2021 offered HIV counseling and testing with return of results to the participants and collected information about uptake of HIV care and treatment services,” Read the summary.

“MPHIA 2020-201 was the second survey to estimate national HIV incidence and the national and district-level prevalence of HIV and viral load suppression (VLS), defined as HIV RNA <1,000 copies per milliliter (mL). The first MPHIA was conducted from November 2015 through August 2016. The results of these two surveys provide critical information about national and district-level progress toward control of the HIV epidemic,” Summary continued.

Source; Times 360 Malawi