Improving Laboratory Capacity and Quality in the Scale-up of HIV Diagnosis, Care, Treatment, and Monitoring in Malawi under the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR)

The goal of this NOFO is to strengthen the lab capacity and quality to achieve measurable outcomes that directly contribute to the achievement and maintenance of HIV epidemic control. The priorities for this NOFO are for over 95% of patients to have a viral load (VL) and Early Infant Diagnosis (EID) taken and acted upon; use Quality Assurance (QA) and Quality Improvement (QI) processes to monitor specific lab and facility performance; build the TB and HIV lab capacity to diagnose TB; improve the TB/HIV diagnostic cascade and monitor TB drug resistance; ensure 90% of molecular labs reach International Standardization Organization (ISO) accreditation; build lab capacity for HIV co-morbidities including Non-Communicable Diseases (NCDs); and support lab capacity in surveillance to monitor epidemic control.This will be achieved through the use of QA/QI systems and improved collaboration with the HIV program, human resource capacity for laboratory, better use and management of data, reinforced and extended national laboratory sample transportation network, sufficient lab infrastructure and available supplies, and improved laboratory quality management systems.Testing service will be optimized using conventional for VL and point of care (POC) (as appropriate) in order to increase VL coverage to over 700,000 tests annually. Extended sample transportation system and digitalization of specimen accessioning and results return will lead to reduced turnaround time (7-14 days).