CDC's Work in Malawi

CDC opened an office in Malawi in 2001. It works closely with the Government of Malawi and partner organizations to prevent, detect, respond to and control HIV and other infectious disease outbreaks, with the aim of protecting Americans' health and promoting public health worldwide.

Key accomplishments

• Supported Malawi's largest electronic medical record system, now in more than 785 facilities.
• Strengthened laboratory testing for HIV, tuberculosis (TB) and emerging infections across the country, including continuous quality improvement for both conventional and point-of-care laboratories.
• Established the Field Epidemiology Training Program (FETP), which has trained more than 300 public health workers.
• Supported the national Public Health Emergency Operations Center, including during the country's deadliest cholera outbreak.
• Improved surveillance for acute flaccid paralysis through FETP graduates after a 2022 polio outbreak.

Global health security

CDC's support focuses on real-time disease surveillance, laboratory systems and diagnostics, workforce development and emergency management.

Laboratories. CDC helps the Public Health Institute of Malawi (PHIM) prepare for and respond to emerging diseases. PHIM's reference laboratories produce genotyping and proficiency testing panels for TB, HIV, syphilis and hepatitis B tests, which sustain the national quality assurance program. CDC supports a four-tier approach, central, district, facility and community, to strengthen testing for HIV diagnosis and treatment monitoring, emerging infections and TB. All 28 of Malawi's districts take part.

Workforce. CDC and PHIM set up Malawi's FETP in 2016 to train public health workers at community, subnational and national levels in disease surveillance and outbreak investigation and response. The program offers frontline and intermediate training.

Emergency response

• Cholera: in 2022–2023 Malawi had the deadliest cholera outbreak in its history, with more than 59,000 cases and 1,770 deaths. CDC provided expertise to the emergency operations center, drawing on funds from its HIV, TB and COVID-19 work, and worked with UNICEF on water, sanitation and hygiene.
• Polio: after three decades without polio, Malawi declared an outbreak in 2022, confirming wild poliovirus type 1, then reported four cases of vaccine-derived poliovirus type 1 and a vaccine-derived type 2 outbreak found in environmental samples. CDC strengthened paralysis surveillance through FETP graduates.
• Monkeypox: Malawi confirmed its first monkeypox case on April 17, 2025, and had 138 confirmed cases by October 2025. PHIM leads the response, with an emergency operations center working with district authorities. The U.S. government donated 33,600 doses of JYNNEOS vaccine and supported a vaccination campaign; by November 2025, 10 of 12 planned districts had finished, and 79% of the doses (more than 26,200) had been given. CDC helped build diagnostic capacity at the national reference laboratory, trained health workers in four districts including Lilongwe, where most cases have been reported, supported risk communication and community engagement, advised the national incident management team, and helped prepare the national vaccine request and deployment plan.

HIV and TB

As a key implementer of the U.S. President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), CDC supports Malawi's public health system in preventing, detecting and responding to HIV, TB and other infections, reducing the risk of their reaching the United States. Malawi is one of five countries in the TB Guidance for Adaptable Patient-Centered Service (TB GAPS) study, which seeks better ways to screen for, diagnose and prevent TB in children and adults.

Immunization

CDC provides technical and program expertise to eradicate, eliminate or control vaccine-preventable diseases, working with international and local partners to strengthen immunization systems and expand routine vaccination against diseases such as polio, measles and monkeypox.

Sources

• Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, "CDC in Malawi." https://www.cdc.gov/global-health/countries/malawi.html
• CDC Malawi fact sheet (March 19, 2026): https://www.cdc.gov/global-health/media/pdfs/Malawi_factsheet.pdf; HIV and TB overview: https://www.cdc.gov/global-hiv-tb/php/where-we-work/malawi.html