Lilongwe — The United Nations (UN) Envoy for HIV and AIDS in Africa, Stephen Lewis has dispelled fears that had been circulating in the country among those involved in the fight against the pandemic about the phasing out of resources from the Global Fund

He said the Global Fund would not run out in 2008 as has been alleged. He said what is real is that the current Global Fund project has 2008 as its deadline and that countries can still send proposals for more funding for programmes that go beyond the dateline.

"There is no reason why Malawi should not have another extensive proposal submitted in 2007 to the Fund," Lewis declared.

Lewis then went on to warn that the situation of orphans in Malawi as a result of HIV and AIDS is a potentially looming catastrophe.

The Malawi Government has described the situation as 'a time bomb' that needs urgent action before it explodes.

"With over 1 million orphans it is quite clear that there is need for a Comprehensive Action Plan on Orphans, as 50 percent of these orphans are as a result of HIV/AIDS related deaths," Lewis said.

He said what the statistics mean is that 5 percent of the Malawi population are orphans.

"This is a potential looming catastrophe," he warned.

He said for an impoverished country like Malawi to have so many orphans presents a huge challenge for the government and people of the country.

"Some kind of social welfare scheme needs to get constructed to get money to child headed families, other vulnerable families and to the community," suggested Lewis.

Principal Secretary in the Office of the President and Cabinet responsible for HIV/AIDS and Nutrition Dr. Mary Shawa said officially, there are now 1.4 million orphans and she conceded that Malawi cannot seriously cope with it.

Shawa said another problem is that of the elderly who are often bereft after their children have died because of the pandemic.

"It is a political problem. No government can govern a sick nation. Because even if government comes up with a beautiful policy, there will be no people to implement it," she lamented.

She said the country has had 100,000 new infections from last year while 26,000 children are born HIV positive in the period.

"Because of our situation, most of the orphans do not go to school. We are bringing up the next generation that is HIV positive, highly malnourished and will be illiterate. We need to run, and run quickly because we are sitting on a time bomb. Soon it will erupt," she warned.

Without particularising the Malawi situation the UN Envoy told the press in Lilongwe last week that the situation in African countries has been compounded by the conditions imposed on them by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank and the attitude of the G8 countries.

"The G8 must show their determination based on decisions made at their Gleneagles meeting," challenged Lewis.

"The IMF is much more difficult than the World Bank. Their conditions have no place in the world of HIV and AIDS. I have no patience with these international organisations," he said.

He said African Governments are too respectful of governments from the West over aid and now need to be more critical of them.

"Frankly speaking, these institutions are wrong-headed. It's crazy the way western governments operate. I encourage African countries not to be too respectful to them, particularly around resources," Lewis said.

He charged that western Governments have done huge damage to Africa as they have extracted African resources, including oil, diamonds and gold during the partition of Africa and yet the same countries make it difficult for African countries to access aid.

"These institutions lack logic and common sense. You have to criticise them openly and critically. African Governments must know that they owe them nothing because this is a matter of reparation and not aid," he said.

He said African governments like that of Malawi must tell the West that they have dreadful problems of financial sustainability.

Lewis, who was on a three-day official visit between 29 and 31 October dubbed 'the Malawi Mission' said although Malawi has made dramatic strides in combating the epidemic on treatment there is still a long way to go.

"Focus on paediatric treatment for Children get lost in the last years of priority," he said but added that combination therapy will soon be available for children.

He also said there is need for a singular single-minded rollout on Prevention of Mother-to-Child Transmission (PMTCT).

"When HIV positive women do not have Nevirapine or combined therapy, we lose a great deal of them," he said.

According to a fact sheet released during the press conference by UNAIDS, there are currently 66 public and 23 private health facilities that are providing Anti-Retroviral Therapy (ART) in collaboration with the Ministry of Health.

The release also said that only 7% (36) of the 514 health facilities offering Ante-Natal Clinical services in 2005 offered PMTCT services and 2,719 (2.3%) of pregnant women needing Nevirapine received it in 2005

Lewis said he was also shocked that there was almost non-involvement in the initiatives of People Living with HIV and AIDS (PLWHA)

"These people are the experts who must be regularly consulted," said Lewis. "It is easy to marginalise them. It is easy to ignore them, but it is a terrible mistake not to regularly consult them."

"They told me that they do not have regular access to the Ministry of Health," he said before telling the media that the Minister of Health Marjorie Ngaunje has now said she would be meeting them quarterly.

Lewis also bemoaned the availability of only ten CD4 count machines in the country and said the country needed many more.

He said the Government of Malawi has been treating infected people according to WHO protocol, which was nonetheless a futile effort as there were just not enough structures on the ground to support this.

He said a lot of people who are on ART die when their progress cannot be effectively monitored; and one of the monitoring tools is through the usage of the CD4 count machines.

He said women are ultimately ignored in the pandemic and there is need for the donor community to move in behind the women in Malawi as they move in for the orphans.