This is the 3rd in our update on D5110 involvement with RI’s Peace Fellowship Program. Each year, Rotary awards up to 130 fully funded fellowships for dedicated leaders from around the world to study at one of our peace centers.
Chimwemwe Kumwenda, a physician from Malawi, was sponsored by the RC of Medford. She returned to Malawi at the forefront of the Covid-19 crisis but was able to complete her MPH at the Peace Center at the University of North Carolina.
Dr Kumwenda recently joined UNC’s Institute for Global Health and Infectious Diseases Project Malawi for a study called PAC-Man. A 5-year research program focused on bringing services into remote villages where most women never see HIV medical services.
Despite making progress in Malawi, over one-quarter of children living with HIV go without treatment. This has mainly been attributed to gaps with existing approaches. The current standard of care for identifying new HIV cases in children relies largely on mothers and their infants presenting to health facilities for routine services. This approach may miss “high-risk” pairs who have little contact with the health system such as mothers who did not initiate Antiretroviral Therapy during pregnancy and/or post-partum, mothers who initiated ART late in pregnancy and/or breastfeeding, mothers who experienced treatment interruption, adolescent mothers, and mothers who had high viral load during pregnancy and/or post-partum, among others.
Building Positive Peace Through Health
As a Rotary Peace Fellow, I’m excited to be involved in this project as it is an opportunity to contribute to building positive peace through health. This has been my dream for Malawi. Through the elimination of Mother to Child transmission of HIV, we are promoting good health and wellbeing, and the PAC-Man model will help reduce inequalities by bringing health services closer to mothers and their infants who have challenges accessing these services and are lost to follow up. I will always be grateful to my sponsor District, 5110 for the tremendous support since 2019.
chuckroot1112@gmail.com
Since the program began in 2002, the Rotary Peace Centers have trained more than 1,700 fellows who now work in over 140 countries. Many serve as leaders in governments; NGOs; education and research institutions; peacekeeping and law enforcement agencies; and international organizations like the United Nations and the World Bank.
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