I used to work as a clinician at Kamuzu Central, a hospital in Lilongwe, Malawi, where I was part of a team of volunteers that provided home-based care services to HIV/AIDS patients. Our voluntary work, which started as a humble assignment, has now grown into a big center of excellence in caring for HIV/AIDS patients called Lighthouse, a registered public trust that exists to provide high quality HIV treatment, care, and support for people living with HIV.
After working for six years at Kamuzu Central Hospital, I took a position with Save the Children as an HIV/AIDS Officer where I was involved in providing quality HIV/AIDS services, which included scaling up HIV testing services, provision of psychosocial support services, management of opportunistic infections, and capacity building of local NGOs to provide quality HIV/AIDS services. After about twelve years working on HIV/AIDS and maternal and newborn care at Save the Children, I came to USAID in 2015 as a Child Health Specialist with experience in HIV as well as maternal and child health.
At USAID, I have overseen the immunization program in Malawi, working to ensure that immunization coverage is growing, especially for children under five. Over the years, we began working on integration at our outreach clinics, where a patient can receive immunizations, HIV testing, care in the first trimester of pregnancy, and screenings for malaria and malnutrition.
What we started has now put a lot of people back on their feet. They are going back to work with an undetectable viral load. In time, I feel like we'll be able to say we've eliminated HIV.
One of my proudest accomplishments was being part of the team that founded Lighthouse, which is now a center of excellence for HIV case management. What we started has now put a lot of people back on their feet. They are going back to work with an undetectable viral load. In time, I feel like we'll be able to say we've eliminated HIV.
Reuben Ligowe is a Senior Maternal and Newborn Health Specialist at USAID Malawi.
