Innocent was only 6 years old when his father died from an AIDS-related illness. Soon after the little boy began feeling sick himself.
After visiting multiple health centers, Innocent eventually ended up at the Baylor Foundation in Malawi’s capital city, Lilongwe, and was put on lifesaving antiretroviral medicines (ARVs).
He remembers being told he was HIV-positive when he was 9 years old.
“It was kind of scary to me because…I lost my father [for] the exact same reason...[I thought] maybe someday I'm going to be gone like him,” he says.
But today Innocent is an ambitious and energetic 20-year-old. He is a passionate photographer and is working hard to turn that passion into a successful career. He recently had his first paid job photographing a wedding.
Innocent says that over the last 13 years, the care and support he received through Baylor Foundation Malawi changed his life.
Founded in 2004, the Baylor College of Medicine Children’s Foundation Malawi is one of southern Africa’s leading pediatric HIV centers.
With investments from the Global Fund, USAID and the AbbVie Foundation, Baylor Foundation Malawi provides lifesaving health services and support to children living with HIV and AIDS and their families, including access to the latest child-friendly drug regimens as well as age-appropriate psychosocial support and care.
The Foundation also runs a program called Teen Club, which supports children and adolescents aged 10- to 19-years-old living with HIV with health services, career and life-skills counseling as well as education on preventing and identifying gender-based violence.
Executive Director Phoebe Nyasulu says that investments in adequate care and support not only transform children’s lives but also entire communities.
“We have so many success stories of children who walked through the corridors of Baylor Foundation Malawi very sick, in very bad condition, who are now giving back to their community,” she says.
Innocent is one of these young people. After completing Teen Club, he has now returned as a mentor, providing support to other children and adolescents who face the same challenges he once experienced.
“This place gives us personal change; it gives us strength. Before joining I had little self-confidence, but then after I joined, I was able to speak, I was able to do everything that everyone can do,” he says.
But the care and support Innocent and others receive through Baylor Foundation Malawi is out of reach for millions of other children.
One of the most glaring inequities in the fight against HIV today is the failure to provide lifesaving treatment and support to the world’s youngest citizens.
Currently, around the world, a child dies from an AIDS-related cause every 5 minutes. And despite the availability of highly effective treatments that prevent pregnant mothers from transmitting HIV to their babies, UNAIDS estimates that 160,000 children were born HIV-positive in 2021 alone.
Only half (52%) of children living with HIV are on lifesaving treatment, far behind adults, of whom three-quarters (76%) are receiving antiretrovirals. And even when children do have access to these medications, many are still receiving older, sub-optimal drugs.
Around the world, the Global Fund is working with partners to address these inequities to eventually end AIDS among children.
These efforts include investments in programs that ensure all pregnant women have access to HIV testing and care, including medications to prevent passing HIV on to their babies as well as focused testing, early infant diagnosis and rapid antiretroviral initiation.
The Global Fund also works with countries to provide children with newer drug regimens that are specifically formulated for children. By mid-2022, the Global Fund had procured and supported the transition to the pediatric dolutegravir formulation, which is more effective, cheaper and better tolerated by children.
The Global Fund is also part of regional and global efforts – including the Global Alliance to End AIDS in Children, an initiative led by 12 African countries with the goal of ending AIDS in children by 2030.
Ms. Nyasulu says that she has seen a huge shift in the treatment of children with HIV or AIDS in Malawi.
“Before the establishment of Baylor Foundation Malawi, children were just left to die. I think the understanding at that time was that they were not making any contribution economically to the nation, so they were not a priority. But we've now seen that children are a priority just like any other person in the country.”
© 2026 The Global Fund
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