Malawi News

At Makawa Primary School, where more than 5,000 children fill classrooms each day, the morning of 24 March 2026, the first day in Malawi’s round 1 nationwide polio vaccination campaign, carried a quiet urgency and a powerful sense of hope.

On a warm morning in Chembe Village, along the shimmering shores of Lake Malawi in Cape Maclear, laughter travels faster than the breeze. It belongs to two inseparable friends Caroline and Madalitso—whose bond is as strong as their shared courage.

Lilongwe – Phase 2 of the polio vaccination campaign is now underway across all districts in Malawi, targeting children under the age of 10 from 27–30 April 2026.

This second round follows a polio case detected in Blantyre earlier this year, highlighting the urgency to boost immunity and protect every child.

Lilongwe-Malawi has launched the second cohort of emergency responder’s AVoHC Surge training in bid to strengthen its capacity to respond to public health emergencies with support from the Pandemic Fund, World Bank-HEPRR and World Health Organisation,  

Lilongwe-WHO Malawi Country Representative a.i., Dr Charles Kuria Njuguna joined the Malawi Government in launching the Implementation Plan for Executive Order No. 2 of 2026, a bold and transformative step toward protecting public health through improved sanitation and hygiene.

The Order, decreed by His Excellency the State President Prof. Arthur Peter Mutharika, mandates the provision of water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) facilities in all public places, workplaces, and schools signaling a decisive national shift toward #prevention as the foundation of #health.

Lilongwe-Minister of Health and Sanitation Hon Madalitso Baloyi MP has today officially opened the 2026 Annual Meeting of National Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTD) Programme Managers in Lilongwe. 

The meeting themed “Leveraging innovative tools and sustainable financing to advance NTD elimination in Africa” has brought together programme managers, policymakers, partners, and experts from across Africa to strengthen collaboration and accelerate progress toward eliminating NTDs by 2030.

Just three years ago, Malawi faced a daunting challenge. A wave of emergencies including COVID-19, cholera, cyclones, floods, and even a wild polio virus outbreak that strained the health system. Immunization rates dropped, and thousands of children missed critical vaccines. Behind these numbers were real stories, of fathers that are unaware of the importance of vaccines, and of cultural norms that hindered women from seeking health care services.

For years, Malawi’s Kamuzu Central Hospital (KCH) laboratory has served quietly but decisively as the national hub for confirming measles and rubella cases. Its work underpins the country’s immunization programme validating suspected outbreaks, guiding vaccination campaigns, and helping health teams distinguish local transmission from imported cases.

In October 2025, a suspected polio case triggered an urgent alert in Malawi’s Mwanza District. The patient was a 9-month-old girl who had been brought to Thambani Health Centre with symptoms of paralysis. What made this case unusual was that the child was not from Malawi, she lived just across the border in Moatize District, Mozambique. This discovery set in motion a remarkable example of cross-border cooperation to protect communities from polio.