Magister Scientiae - MScAlthough the under-five mortality rate in Malawi has been declining since 1960, it still remains one of the highest in the world. In order to appropriately target interventions to achieve substantial reductions in deaths among children under the age of five years in Malawi, there is an ongoing need for better knowledge of the proportion of cause-specific under-five mortality in the country. The aim of this study was to estimate the direct contribution of HIV/AIDS to the observed level of under-five mortality in Malawi during the period 2000 to 2004.South Afric