Malaysia

Key Results

Over US$ 2.5 million secured through Global Fund for grant proposal for HIV prevention and health system strengthening.
Launch of the Reaching the Unreached agenda for marginalized populations.
Implementation of mobile outreach programmes for hard-to-reach women and girls and their spouses.

Joint Programme Results

The Joint Team rendered substantial support to the Malaysian Government in ensuring sustainable funding, advancing prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV services and expanding HIV services to hard-to-reach communities. Technical support to the Malaysian Country Coordinating Mechanism and the Malaysian AIDS Council led to a successful Global Fund for HIV grant proposal for the 2022-2025 period. Focused on the establishment of resilient and sustainable systems for health (RSSH) and the expansion of pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) as a method of HIV prevention, the application secured US$ 1.5 million for the procurement of PrEP for 18 primary care clinics across Malaysia until December 2024. More than US$ 1 million was also allocated to strengthen community-led programmes, the national health management information system, and monitoring and evaluation for RSSH (WHO).

Malaysia achieved all the process and outcome indicator targets set in the Elimination of Mother-to-child Transmission of HIV (EMTCT) and Syphilis plan for the 2017-2020 period. In 2022, the Joint Team provided extensive technical support for the development and submission of the EMTCT maintenance report and worked closely with the Regional and Global Validation Secretariat and the Ministry of Health to address concerns including human rights, gender equality and community engagement, which were raised by Global Validation Advisory Committee (GVAC) during its 2021 virtual mission (WHO).

The newly launched Reaching the Unreached (RTU) agenda helped to identify key cross-cutting issues affecting marginalized populations, including the high prevalence of communicable diseases such as tuberculosis in East Malaysia and in prisons and other closed settings through a collaboration with relevant stakeholders (WHO). Intense advocacy and technical support to the Ministry of Health also resulted in the Government recognizing the need to strengthen laboratory capacity by expanding point-of-care testing systems in high-burden areas to eliminate logistical barriers and improve access to healthcare services (WHO).

Source: Global AIDS Monitoring

AIDS mortality

Source: Global AIDS Monitoring

Progress towards 95-95-95 targets

Source: Global AIDS Monitoring

To expand access to HIV services among key and vulnerable populations, 138 refugees and asylum seekers living with HIV accessed antiretroviral treatment with support from the Joint Team. Nongovernmental organizations also received support in providing treatment adherence support services for 172 persons living with HIV enrolled on treatment, rehabilitative and nursing care for 12 extremely vulnerable refugees as well as sexual and reproductive health, gender-based violence and HIV information and counselling services for 935 hard-to-reach women and girls and their spouses through regular mobile outreach programmes in the Northern region of the Peninsular Malaysia. Additionally, 128 pregnant women and girls received antenatal care while 270 were given regular access to contraceptives through the mobile programmes (UNHCR).

Technical assistance was provided to the National Anti-drugs Agency of Malaysia on the transition towards voluntary-community based treatment and care of people who use drugs, as well as on “Strong Families” family-skills substance use prevention among children and adolescents. The Malaysian Prisons Department also benefitted from technical support on the delivery of comprehensive packages of HIV services for people in prisons (UNODC).