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Country Profiles

Rwanda PMTCT

Rwanda launches U.S. president's PMTCT initiative

rwanda ceremony imageKIGALI, Rwanda - In honor of World AIDS Day 2003, Kicukiro Health Center marked the launch of President Bush's International Mother and Child HIV Prevention Initiative with a ceremony at the center. With funding from the initiative, this Kigali-based Catholic facility will provide antiretroviral therapy (ART) to 250 patients. The patients will be selected from among women who have participated in the center's prevention of mother to child transmission (PMTCT) program and their partners and children. The initial 13 patients were provided with their first dose of ART on November 24, 2003.
At the ceremony, USAID/Rwanda Director Henderson Patrick and the Director of Rwanda's Treatment and Research Center (TRAC/Ministry of Health), Dr. Louis Munyakazi, delivered words of encouragement to the new ART patients as well as other people living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHA) in Kicukiro. Several PLWHA, including an HIV positive couple whose HIV negative child was born at Kicukiro under the PMTCT program, provided testimonials about their lives, the impact of their HIV status and their gratitude for being included in the ART program. The director of the health center, Sister Carmelinda Sergi, thanked USAID, FHI/IMPACT and TRAC for their support and requested that the program be expanded beyond PMTCT women and their families to include a wider population of PLWHA, including VCT clients.

President Bush's International Mother and Child HIV Prevention Initiative will provide 400 mothers and their families with antiretroviral therapy and home-based care services throughout Rwanda. FHI/IMPACT will continue to provide technical and financial support to seven health facilities that are (or will be) benefiting from this new initiative.

As of December 1, 2003, FHI/IMPACT is supporting PMTCT services at eight health facilities, six through the President's Initiative and the remaining two through other USAID funding sources. By September 2003, 11,006 expectant mothers had visited collaborating antenatal clinics, and 76% had accepted to be tested for HIV. Five hundred and sixty-one (7%) tested positive and nearly all of these mothers enrolled in the PMTCT program. Three hundred and eleven mothers have given birth with 92% receiving Nevirapine for themselves and their baby. By the end of September 2003, 41 children had reached 15 months of age and were tested with four testing positive for HIV.

rwanda group image

Top photo: Patients and personnel from Kicukiro Health Center address the visiting delegation. (FHI)

Bottom photo: Sister Carmelinda Sergi, Director of WB MPC, (first from left, front row, kneeling), Deborah Murray, FHI Country Director (third from left, front row), Dr. Eugenie Kayirangwa, FHI seconded staff to Rwanda Ministry of Health (fourth from left, front row), USAID/Rwanda Director Henderson Patrick (second from right, second row, standing), Dr. Louis Munyakasi, Rwandan Ministry of Health (standing, behind Director Patrick), Community Development Specialist, USAID/Rwanda, Dr. Ruben Sahaho (third from right, standing), Martin Ngabonziza, FHI/Rwanda technical advisor (third from left, second row, in back), and Dr. Lambert Kabagabo, an FHI physician in ART (fourth from left, second row) and other patients benefiting from President Bush's initiative pose for a photo. (FHI)