A recent study on responses to the 2006 HIV and infant feeding
policy change in Malawi (Chinkonde et al. 2010) indicates that
health workers found it difficult to advise women about the policy
change due to lack of consensus on WHO guidelines. Health
workers were worried that they could lose the trust of PMTCT
clients and the population. However, support to HIV-infected
women was noted in PMTCT programmes where health workers
were multi-skilled, co-ordinated their efforts and had functional
multidisciplinary task teams and involved communities.
This study concluded that policy change is a slow process and it
entails soliciting consensus amongst stakeholders