Young people living with HIV under the banner Y-Plus have appealed to authorities in the health sector to consider changing the packaging of antiretroviral therapy to portable wrapping.

Y Plus has made plea in Lilongwe during an interactive session which YONECO organised and saw a participation of peer mobilisers on Sexual Reproductive Health Services under the Connect Malawi Project.

In an interview with YFM Online, YPlus Chairperson Chifundo Tindo said the current packaging of ARVs is inconvenience to young people and that government, through health ministry should work on changing the packaging.

“As young people living with HIV we want to ask government and other stakeholders that they should change the packaging of ARVs as they did with 5A changing to 13A, I think they can also do same with packaging,” appealed Tindo.

Tindo added that the young people always find it difficult to travel with the ARVs because they are too noisy.

“Those bottles if they are taken in huge numbers, they do produce a lot of noise, which is also one of the contributing factors that restricts young people from continuing receiving the drugs because they are such packaged in unfamiliar way,” Tindo said.

The two-and-a-half-year Connect Malawi Project, which is being rolled out in partnership with One to One Children`s Fund, is targeting communities surrounding Area 18, Bwaila and Tsabango Health Facilities which are under the Lilongwe District Health Office.