Malawi - The African Mirror

Oct

07

2020

How smartphones could help improve child health in Malawi

GRIPHIN BAXTER CHIRAMBOADAMSON S. MUULABO ANDERSSONCIARA HEAVINJOHN O'DONOGHUEMATTHEW THOMPSONYVONNE O'CONNOR MANY low- and middle-income countries, such as Malawi, continue to experience high child mortality rates. Most of these deaths are caused by preventable and treatable diseases such as diarrhoea, malaria and pneumonia. But managing these conditions is a challenge in Malawi, where around 83% of the population lives in rural areas where access to appropriate health facilities is difficult. To identify sick children and ensure they get treatment close to home the World Health Organisation (WHO) and UNICEF introduced a community case management protocol in 2008. It’s mostly managed by…

Oct

04

2020

By The African Mirror

IMF offers second installment of $102 mln emergency loan to Malawi

BUSINESS

THE International Monetary Fund (IMF) has extended an emergency loan of $101.96 million for Malawi to plug its fiscal deficit, a second instalment of credit offered to tide over the financial hit from the coronavirus. The first loan of $91 million was disbursed in May to fund a widening gap in balance of payment in the south-east African nation. [nL8N2CK05V] “Malawi’s economic outlook has worsened (since May)... with the accelerated spread of the pandemic in the country,” the IMF said in a statement. It said the second credit facility will help strengthen the health care system, step up social spending,…

Oct

01

2020

By The African Mirror

Proposal to ease Malawi’s strict abortion laws faces religious opposition

HUMAN RIGHTS

CHARLES PENSULO LAWMAKERS in Malawi are preparing to debate a bill that would ease the country's tight restrictions on abortion, but they face stiff resistance from powerful religious groups. Malawi currently allows abortion only when it is necessary to save a woman's life and has one of the highest rates of maternal mortality in the world, in part because so many women resort to dangerous backstreet terminations. Now some lawmakers are pushing for a bill that would allow abortions in cases of rape, incest, or where the pregnancy endangers the mother's physical or mental health, to be tabled in parliament…

Sep

03

2020

By The African Mirror

Bad weather, COVID-19 leave over 2.6 mln Malawians short of food

COVID-19

MALAWI says that weather-related hazards coupled with the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic would leave 15% of the population in need of food aid this season. The Malawi Vulnerability Assessment Committee, a grouping of government, food experts and aid agencies, found that over 2.6 million people in the southern African country of 17.7 million would not be able to meet their food requirements during the 2020/21 consumption season. Impoverished Malawi is periodically hit by food shortages as it relies heavily on rain-fed agriculture and most of its maize is grown on small plots by subsistence farmers. Winford Masanjala, secretary for…

Aug

18

2020

By The African Mirror

Coronavirus banishes female inmates to far-flung jails in Malawi

COVID-19

CHARLES PENSULO MALAWI is transferring female prisoners to remote jails in a bid to slow the pandemic, but human rights groups say the move could instead spread the coronavirus and damage the women's welfare. They say the relocation ends all family visits, leaving the women isolated and short of basics, from food to sanitary pads. "These transfers are unprecedented, and devastating to many of the women, who are now far from their families and housed in unsanitary and congested cellblocks," Alexious Kamangila of Reprieve, a local human rights organisation, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. The government said it had no…