Integrating HIV and hypertension management in low-resource settings: Lessons from Malawi

points• Hypertension is the leading risk factor for cardiovascular disease, the most common cause of death worldwide.• In 2011, the United Nations declared that lessons learned from national human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)/acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS), tuberculosis, and malaria programs in low-and middle-income countries should be harnessed for effective integration of communicable and noncommunicable disease initiatives.• HIV clinical service delivery facilities offer a platform on which to enhance care by offering noncommunicable disease interventions.• Given Malawi's high prevalence of hypertension, with an estimated one-third of adults in the country affected, we sought to incorporate hypertension management in HIV care delivery sites using standardized treatment protocols and patient registries to monitor treatment outcomes.• The overall aim was to create a reproducible and scalable hypertension management model for HIV-infected persons that is cost effective and that can be used to inform national scale-up of hypertension and other chronic disease care models.• We describe pertinent issues that were raised during the design and implementation of the program, particularly important for the enhanced care of HIV-infected persons.