Two great Commonwealth partners are helping each other to tackle global health challenges. UK’s Department for International Development (DfID) Head of Office in Malawi, JEN MARSHALL, writes on how UK aid has supported efforts towards trachoma elimination in Malawi among other health issues.
This week, the British High Commission in Lilongwe will welcome Her Royal Highness the Countess of Wessex. The visit is a celebration in more ways than one. The Countess’s visit coincides with Commonwealth Day and she will be representing Queen Elizabeth II, who is Head of the Commonwealth, providing an opportunity to celebrate the close ties between UK and Commonwealth countries such as Malawi.
Primarily, however, the Countess is visiting in her capacity as Vice Patron of the Queen Elizabeth Diamond Jubilee Trust to shine a light on the successful partnership which the Trust’s Trachoma Initiative has formed with Malawi.
Trachoma is the world’s leading infectious cause of blindness – 200 million people are at risk, with 1.9 million people blind or visually impaired, and 3.2 million people needing surgery to avoid blindness because of trachoma. The disease is most commonly found in poor, rural areas where people do not have access to clean water and health care. Women are blinded up to four times as often as men – often because they are in more contact with children who pick up the infection easily.
But this terrible disease can be eliminated – we know where the disease is endemic, we have the tools to tackle it and we have the donated drugs to protect people – Malawi is showing how these can be brought together in a world-leading partnership.
Indeed, Malawi is making tremendous progress in its efforts to treat and prevent trachoma and is on track to eliminate trachoma as a public health problem in the coming years. The Countess’s visit will highlight the successful model of partnership here which is bringing an end to the suffering and eventual blindness caused by trachoma. The world will see what Malawi has achieved so far.
The UK is the leading donor in the fight against trachoma. UK aid will treat up to 23 million people from trachoma and will provide surgery to prevent blindness in up to 225,000 people in a number of countries in Africa.
UK aid provides half of the support to the Queen Elizabeth Diamond Jubilee Trust’s avoidable blindness programmes. The Queen Elizabeth Diamond Jubilee Trust, which is also supported by private donors and some Commonwealth countries, has worked in partnership with the Government of Malawi and NGOs in Malawi to deliver improvements in hygiene, antibiotics and surgery to eight million people in the affected communities. And it is working! Malawi is on track to be the first country of the Trachoma Initiative in Africa to eliminate trachoma as a public health problem.
The Trust’s Trachoma Initiative is just part of the UK aid partnership with Malawi. Through the Department for International Development based in the British High Commission, the UK aid programme has built a long and strong relationship with Malawi and is providing support to girl’s education, the democratic process, and resilience to climate change and humanitarian crises.
Health is a major area of support for UK aid in Malawi and the UK is one of the leading supporters of health in Malawi, improving the health of millions of poor children and adults across the country by providing drugs and essential supplies and support to service delivery.
Since 2011, over 900,000 more women in Malawi will be using modern methods of family planning through UK support, helping to slow Malawi’s rapid population growth.
Over the last year, UK support has enabled nutritional screening of over 800,000 vulnerable children, and treatment for approximately 100,000 children and vulnerable adults.
These are huge achievements and ones that the UK and Malawi can be proud of. And certainly worth celebrating with the Countess’s visit!
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