PEPFAR Malawi’s Country Operational Plan 2022 (COP22) embodies joint priorities from
national and subnational dialogues building on the 2020-2025 National Strategic Plan for
HIV/AIDS. The interagency team has developed a person-centered, district-tailored and Malawi
Population-Based HIV Impact Assessment (MPHIA)-informed strategy through extensive
engagement with Government of Malawi (GoM) and Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) to
sustain HIV epidemic control. At the end of COP21, PEPFAR Malawi was commended for
contributing to reaching epidemic control in strong collaboration with GoM and stakeholders
including the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria (Global Fund). This
includes enrollment of 88% of recipients of care on three or more months of antiretroviral
treatment (ART), better outcomes for Malawian children through remarkable efforts in Orphans
and Vulnerable Children (OVC) programming and progress made towards reaching men with
more intentional and focused programming.
PEPFAR Malawi’s COP22 strategy aims to advance epidemic control gains through personcentered prevention, care, and treatment interventions aligned with GoM priorities and
complemented by health systems investments. The COP22 Strategy is aligned to the Ministry of
Health’s (MoH) new guidelines and strategies, including revised integrated rapid testing
guidelines, comprehensive HIV clinical guidelines, a PrEP scale- up plan and the upcoming
National HIV/AIDS Prevention Strategy, 2022 - 2026. With Malawi estimated to have achieved
epidemic control at 88-98-97 of the 95-95-95 UNAIDS goals, evidenced by MPHIA 2020/2021
results, the interagency team envisions a transformative path ahead enhancing data use to guide
refinement in program strategies. The PEPFAR Malawi team continues its focus on direct
funding to local partners including to government through its government to government (G2G)
mechanisms. In COP22, PEPFAR Malawi will support development of an HIV financing
strategy that will enhance efforts to expand the domestic resource base for the HIV/AIDS
response. In COP22, the PEPFAR Malawi program has planned to identify the remaining 12% of
people living with HIV who are not aware of their HIV status, reach 56,884 people living with
HIV with ART, and retain the over 900,000 people living with HIV who are currently in care
with comprehensive and well-integrated services. Using the equity lens and rights-based
approach, PEPFAR Malawi and implementing partners (IPs) will intensify interventions that
reduce the risk of HIV transmission for priority and key population through accelerated
treatment literacy efforts and scale-up of high impact HIV prevention programs. The
interventions will include PrEP and voluntary medical male circumcision (VMMC).