THE FINAL NEWS REPORT FOR THE WEEK YET ANOTHER STORY OF HOPE:

Malawi unveils mass HIV testing campaign: report Mon Jul 16, 9:02 AM ET

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - Health officials in Malawi were preparing on Monday to launch a massive HIV testing programme to identify tens of thousands of people unknowingly infected with the virus in the southern African nation.

Many of the estimated 14 percent of Malawian adults who are HIV-positive do not know they are infected, jeopardizing efforts to stop the spread of the HIV/AIDS epidemic among sexually active teenagers and adults, the government has said.

Malawi hopes to administer voluntary HIV tests to some 130,000 people this week, according to its health department, which estimated only 1 million of Malawi's 6 million sexually active population knew their HIV status.

"This implies that the majority of Malawians do not know that they are carrying the virus because they have not gone for a test, a situation that poses a great threat to prevention efforts," health authorities said in a statement, according to South Africa's SAPA news agency.

Malawi has already lost an estimated 1 million people to AIDS since the disease first surfaced in the 1980s, straining its tiny health-care system and devastating agricultural production, the lifeblood of the local economy.

The impoverished nation continues to struggle to find enough money to put in place grassroots HIV-prevention efforts, especially in rural areas where HIV infection rates are still rising, in contrast to the declines seen in cities.

Close to 30,000 newborns are infected every year because of the government's failure to prevent mother-to-child transmission, and only a fraction of those living with HIV have access to life-saving anti-retroviral drugs, according to officials.

But AIDS activists have praised Malawi for its hands-on approach to fighting the disease, noting that it was one of the first nations in sub-Saharan Africa to implement a regular national HIV testing programme.

The current testing programme costs about $1.5 million.