The rapid and massive scale-up of antiretroviral drug therapy (ART) so needed in sub-Saharan Africa will not be possible using a 'medicalised' model. A more simple approach is required. DOTS has been used now for many years to provide successful anti-tuberculosis treatment to millions of patients in poor countries of the world, and many of the established concepts can be used for the delivery of ART. Malawi, a small and impoverished country in sub-Saharan Africa, is embarking on a national scale-up of ART. In this review we describe how we have adopted several of the principles of DOTS for delivering ART in Malawi: case finding and registration, treatment, monitoring, drug procurement, staffing and the issue of free drugs. We also discuss ART for HIV-infected TB patients. We hope that by using the DOTS approach we will be able to deliver ART to large numbers of HIV-infected patients under controlled conditions, and minimise the risk of developing drug resistance.