A national survey of teachers on antiretroviral therapy in Malawi: access, retention in therapy and survival

HIV/AIDS is having a devastating effect on the education sector in sub-Saharan Africa. A national survey was conducted in all public sector and private sector facilities in Malawi providing antiretroviral therapy (ART) to determine the uptake of ART by teachers and their outcomes while on treatment. A retrospective cohort study was carried out based on patient follow-up records from ART Registers and treatment master cards in all 138 ART clinics in Malawi; observations were censored on September 30th 2006. By this date, Malawi's 102 public sector and 36 private sector ART clinics had registered a total of 72,328 patients for treatment. Of these, 2,643 (3.7