In October 1964, the University of Malawi was founded. Teaching started in September 1965 at the newly established campus which was formerly an Asian Secondary School in Blantyre. Only 90 students were enrolled.
By 1967, the Institute of Public Administration at Mpemba, the Soche Hill College of Education, the Polytechnic, all in Blantyre, as well as Bunda College in Lilongwe, were incorporated as constituent colleges of the University of Malawi.
Except Bunda College and the Polytechnic, the other colleges moved to Zomba in 1973 to form the now Chancellor College campus.Kamuzu College of Nursing became the fourth constituent college in September 1979 and the College of Medicine in Blantyre became the fifth constituent college when it was established in 1991. Currently 7, 371 students are enrolled in various degree, diploma and certificate programmes.
In addition to motherhood these girls experience social inequality, chronic stress, violence, and food insecurity. When teenagers become mothers, their adversities are compounded.
Engineering students in Malawi and Tanzania have used the materials and tools available to them to build ventilators, personal protective equipment and UV disinfection systems.
Male involvement in prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV is key for the uptake of services and retention in care. When men are involved, HIV exposed or infected children do better.
Depression and diabetes can occur together, and put huge strain on patients and health systems. Depression in patients with diabetes can cause poor self-management and poor treatment adherence.
Health surveillance assistants provide services in village clinics, mainly by assessing signs and symptoms in sick children. An electronic community case management app could make their job easier.
To reduce the prevalence of diabetes in Malawi, efforts to promote healthy eating should target the entire population and not only people who have diabetes.
As antimicrobial resistance increases, the options for treating serious infections dwindle. Doctors need reliable information about which treatments to try out.
Underlying social and structural causes of behaviour - such as poverty and gender disparities - are often ignored. But these are potential drivers of HIV infection among young people.
Malawi’s government wants schools to promote democratic principles. But there’s a contradiction between what students are taught and how they’re expected to behave.
The proposed change to Malawi’s electoral system is straightforward and makes logical sense. Yet it’s more complex and if adopted would revolutionise local politics.
One needs to understand Malawian politics to appreciate the bizarre episode in which a state president was unaccounted for a month, leaving a nation rudderless and puzzled.
Understanding what causes diseases is a life-and-death matter. It is a complicated issue that has generated a great deal of debate in the medical community.
A group of junior doctors, nurses and healthcare workers will not be employed by the Malawian government this year as it is cuts its wage bill to satisfy its international donors.
Malawi and Tanzania have created programs to provide sexual and reproductive health services and HIV interventions. But men who have sex with men say it’s still difficult to access care.
Malawi appears to have learnt nothing from the biggest state corruption scandal that rocked the country two years ago, leading to donors withdrawing their support. The same conditions still remain.
PhD fellow at University of Malawi College of Medicine School of Public Health and Family Medicine and part-time lecturer in Medical and Surgical Nursing, University of Malawi
Head, Paediatrics and Child Health Research Group, Malawi-Liverpool Wellcome Trust Clinical Research Programme; Consultant Paediatrician , University of Malawi