Category: Health

{{Police in Nyamasheke District has arrested Jean Baptise Ntahondereye an intern Nurse on suspected to have injected quinine to a patient who later died.}}

Ntahondereye was apprehended Thursday at Bushenge hospital. He was in the process of treating Adelaide Nishimwe,4, to whom he administered a quinine injection which is believed to have killed her.

Ntahondereye will be charged with involuntary homicide.

According to Nyamasheke District Police Commander Superintendent Fred Ntidendereza upon Nishimwe’s death, Ntahondereye immediately fled.

The management of the hospital immediately informed Police and a search was mounted.

However, Ntahondereye was convinced to return to work the next day by the management where Police immediately arrested him.

The suspect is currently held at Ruharambuga Police Station pending investigation.

It has not yet been established whether Nishimwe was killed by an overdose however, a doctor from Police Hospital Kacyiru has been dispatched to conduct a post mortem.

If found guilty, Ntahondereye risks a jail sentence of between 6months and 2 years.

{{The Ministry of Health in collaboration with UNFPA and Family Health International (FHI360) is conducting a ten-day Family Planing training, which started on 21 May 2012, for health providers from health centres and hospitals in Rusizi District, Western Province.}}

According to a press release from the Ministry of Health, the training is taking place at St. Andre Centre, Kabgayi Catholic Cathedral, Muhanga District.

The first five days (21-25 May 2012) have been devoted to theory while the other five days (28 May to 01 June 2012) will be devoted to practical work at Byimana, Kinazi, Gitarama, Mbuye and Musambira health centres. The training is being facilitated by trainers from Ministry of Health, UNFPA and FHI360.

While opening the training, the Director of Gitwe Hospital, Dr. Valens Habimana said: “I urge you to participate in the training with keen interest. We expect you to improve the contraceptive rate which is very low in Rusizi District.”

Although the government of Rwanda quadrupled contraceptive uptake in five years (from 10% according to 2005 DHS to 45% according to 2010 DHS), the contraceptive uptake is 35.5% in the Western Province and only 23,4% in Rusizi District during the same period.

“Access to family planning services empowers women and can save lives. Ensuring access to voluntary family planning can reduce maternal deaths by a third and child deaths by 20 per cent,” said Ms Daphrose Nyirasafari, UNFPA Rwanda Programme Officer for Sexual and Reproductive Health.

The training is participatory. Trainees are engaged in brainstorming, presentations, group discussions, case studies, role plays and demonstration using anatomic models.

It is aimed at providing to health providers knowledge and competences so that they are able to provide quality family planning services and to increase long-term contraceptive uptake. The training is in line with MoH’s decision to train at least two officers per health centre or hospital to ensure continued quality family planning services.

At the end of the training participants are expected to have acquired enough family planning knowledge and competence to create demand for and provide family planning services especially the long-term methods (implants and Intra-Uterine Device). They are also expected to help increase the number of users of the long-term family planning methods.

{{After being released from the CHUK hospital in Kigali, Nyiransabimana Vestine who was burnt by acid has written to IGIHE seeking for help.}}

On 7th May 2012 at 8:00 pm that is when I left CHUK hospital where I had been admitted for more than three months receiving the treatment. I was burnt by the acid. Currently am resident at kimironko with a relative taking care of me.

Though I haven’t recovered well, I am so pleased and happy because the CHUK hospital were so good to me and gave me all the possible treatment I needed by that time and really helped me so much.

As per now I am regaining strength, I still feel much pain in some parts especially right eye, nose, mouth, the neck, and the left side of my Jaw and all those parts need surgery but its expensive.

A group of doctors who came from India assured me that if can go to India they can nurse back all my wounds but it needs about Frw 7million and I don’t have any.

For the past three months I have been using medication prescribed by the doctor to apply on my skin and the medicine is expensive such as a cream (Iso-bethodine iodine 10% crème au ger). It is not on my insurance that I have (RAMA)

The person who did this to me left me with a lot of damage. The acid destroyed my skin. I feel traumatised.

I thank to those who were supportive to me especially people who sacrificed to support financially where by a number of 13 people have offered me (Frw 122,000). Through using my account number and MTN mobile money.

I am here again pleading to all who still have a loving heart and compassion to help me.

My account number in BPR is No 403-1076590-11, Tel 0788511830 MTN mobile money, Tel 0728511830TIGO cash or email: vestinenyirans@yahoo.com.

{{Rwanda’s universal healthcare has inspired a new program at Harvard University and attracted international attention.}}

Rwanda healthcare and insurance covers about 90% of the citizens. This has undoubtedly inspired medical leaders from around the globe to visit Rwanda and study the country’s unique transformation.

The Harvard Medical School is working with the Rwandan Ministry of Health to teach a course called Global Health Delivery in the village of Rwinkwavu twice a year.

“Rwanda is honestly starting to change the face of global health,” said Dr. Paul Farmer, one of the founders of Partners in Health , a nongovernmental organization that works in Rwanda and other poor countries.

He is also the chairman of Harvard’s Department of Global Health and Social Medicine and one of the faculty members for its course in Africa.

In February, 30 African medical leaders met with Harvard faculty at the training and research center in Rwinkwavu to discuss the challenges of delivering health services in resource-poor settings. Six of these students were trained to become faculty members who will teach future classes, with the next sessions scheduled for July.

During the weeklong course, students and professors discussed case studies and conducted field visits throughout Rwanda. Because all the students are currently health workers — most are employees of the Rwandan Health Ministry — they are able to immediately apply what they learned in the Harvard course to their daily work.

Initially, the course was held only on Harvard’s campus, where students would discuss case studies on the difficulties of delivering medical services internationally.

But the course changed in February. A world away from Cambridge, Massachusetts, health professionals in Rwinkwavu discuss the same case studies.

They also participate in live cases, in which students and faculty members interview doctors, nurses or other health workers, like the head of an organization working to deliver AIDS medications to the poor in Rwanda, to ask them about the challenges of their work.

Visits to Rwandan clinics and hospitals allow students to see health care in action, and give them the opportunity to collaborate with other professionals to discuss solutions.

“To be a good global health provider, it’s good for students to see what others have done,” Dr. Agnes Binagwaho, who is both the Rwandan health minister and a Harvard faculty member, said by telephone.

Seeing potential for the course outside of Massachusetts, Dr. Binagwaho worked with Partners in Health to bring the Harvard curriculum to her home country.

“We hope to have students come from around the world and learn from them as well, and also have the students learning from each other, because they are all coming from countries where there are things ongoing,” she said.

There is now also a new Harvard degree, a Masters in Medical Sciences and Global Health Delivery, which will begin this autumn. Plans to offer a similar degree in Rwanda are under way.

“Above all, you need people who actually do the delivery to tackle the problems,” Dr. Farmer said. He stressed the importance of working not only in Africa, but also with African health care leaders. “Not everyone has the privilege to make it to Harvard — and we needed to reach out,” he added.

The Harvard course is one of the first that focuses exclusively on the challenges of delivering health care. It encourages students to think about how politics, economics and other social factors affect health.

“I don’t know many other groups that are looking at health care delivery as a field of study and bringing that to collaboration with African ministries of health,” said Dr. Joseph Rhatigan, the director of the Global Health Equity residency program at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital, a teaching hospital affiliated with Harvard in Boston.

Partnerships between medical schools and the developing world are increasingly common, but the majority focus on practicing medicine as opposed to delivering care and understanding the effect of social factors, he said.

Dr. Corine Karema, director of the programs for malaria and neglected tropical diseases at the Rwanda Biomedical Center and one of the students in the Harvard course who trained to become a faculty member, said the course made her change the way she looked at medical treatment.

“I’ve been working for a long time in public health, and we used to decide on intervention and strategies if they were cost effective without looking at how the strategy will best affect the patient,” she said.

She said she now had higher expectations. The course taught her to advocate the best treatment available, regardless of cost.

“Too many people in public health have been socialized for scarcity, the idea that we just have to make do with less,” said Dr. Farmer. “That socialization for scarcity has prevented innovation. That’s really what the course is about: confronting the socialization to scarcity and combating it.”

Dr. Farmer and other faculty members drew on their experiences at Partners in Health. For more than 20 years, the organization has worked in Haiti, Lesotho, Mali, Peru and other countries to make once-costly treatments for medical conditions like H.I.V. and tuberculosis available to the poor.

Although professors bring Harvard expertise to the table, they say they take as much away from the course as the students.

“I learn a lot more when I teach experienced people,” said Dr. Joia S. Mukherjee, the medical director of Partners in Health and a Harvard professor who helped organize and teach the course.

“They are all saying, ‘Well, this is what we did here, this is what we did in Haiti.’ The students are learning more from one another than from professors.”

Dr. Farmer recalls students saying in a group discussion, “‘You mean that happened to you, too? Well, we had the same problem in Burundi.”’

“Within five minutes you had five people discussing a very specific problem that they had all faced,” he said.

“That kind of exchange you can’t get out of a classroom, textbook or article. Watching hard-working African health care professionals sharing experiences, just for that hour session alone would have been worth the course.”

The students from Rwanda stay in contact via an online portal, and the case studies are available online as open source information.

“We agreed that in six months, we will all have a case study about something we have done in our daily work and use them as new materials for the Harvard lectures,” Dr. Karema said.

“It’s an outstanding initiative because it relates what is being done in the States to what the needs are overseas,” said Eldryd Parry, founder of THET Partnerships for Global Health, a British organization that works to improve health care in Africa and Asia.

“There is so much in international aid and health that is decided in Washington, and that’s not the mind behind this program. It’s a catalyst for further interest.”

Faculty members have said that the main challenge will be maintaining funding, which is currently supported by Partners in Health, Harvard and philanthropies.

Dr. Pat Lee, who teaches at Harvard but is not affiliated with the course, said, “We have some interesting work to do as educators to adapt to the needs of different learners and tailor the curriculum so that it can be accessible to a variety of audiences.”

That will be critical if Dr. Binagwaho’s vision comes to light. In the future, she hopes to invite health professionals from around Africa and other developing countries to participate.

“We can be the example,” she said, “not teaching in theory, but teaching in practice. If you want the developing world to develop, you have to develop teaching. Courses like this have to grow.”

{The Article was first Published in NY-Times}

{{Rwandan patients will benefit from specialised surgical operations conducted by a group of visting Egyptian medical experts expected in the country soon.}}

The Egyptian team is targeting 150 surgical operations during their one week stay in Rwanda under the auspices of Rwanda and Egyptian ministries of Health.

Recently a group of Indian physicians were in the country where they performed successful specialised surgical operations on Rwandan patients.

In a statement released by the Ministry of Health of Rwanda, the move is part of a cost effective way that the Ministry has adopted in treating complicated cases, where it has less expertise and which would normally have been referred abroad.

The Egyptian physicians include 6 distinguished surgeons in the field of laparoscopic, pediatric, maxillofacial and plastic, gynecology and obstetrics surgery.

The team will conduct surgery operations at Kigali University Central Teaching Hospital CHUK and in Muhima hospitals.

The Egypt-Rwanda health cooperation was renewed during the visit of the Egypt’s Foreign Minister to Rwanda on January 2012.

During these operations, the Egyptian Surgeons will work hand-in-hand with their Rwandan counterparts to share experiences and learn from one another.

The Ministry of Health has prepared all logistical support and basic necessities for the success of the visiting medical team.

{{Consider what you want to do and what suits your lifestyle for now — you may be young and single, with a partner, had a child, spacing your family or have completed your family and want to use contraception up to the menopause.}}

Remember to protect yourself against sexually transmitted diseases — if in doubt, use a condom. What you need to know about depo provera.

The most common injectable hormonal contraceptive is Depo-Provera, a synthetic hormonal substance also known as DMPA (Depot-MedroxyProgesterone Acetate) that is injected into the muscle in the upper arm or buttocks every three months.

Another, shorter-acting injectable hormone, norethdrone enanthate, is injected at a higher dose every two months.

Injectable hormones prevent pregnancy by suppressing ovulation; by making it more difficult for the sperm to swim through the cervical mucus; and by destroying the endometrial lining of the uterus, keeping fertilised eggs from implanting.

DMPA is a safe and highly effective contraceptive.

The success rate for women using DMPA is 99.7 percent.
It reduces menstrual cramps, iron-deficiency anaemia, and the risk for endometrial cancer.

A disadvantage of DMPA is that it requires visits to the doctor or other health care professional every 3 months.

Its side effects include:

-* Abdominal discomfort

-* Dizziness

-* Hair loss

-* Headaches

-* Irregular bleeding

-* Loss of bone density

-* Mood changes

-* Nervousness

-* Weakness or fatigue

-* Weight gain

NB: Always discuss with your doctor about the best contraception available for you before shifting from one method to another. —

Source: net doctor

{{Malaria continues to mutate and becoming more resistant to the widely used medicines. Health Experts discourage self treatment insisting patients be tested before any malaria drugs are prescribed.}}

Experts warn that a resistant strain of malaria could be reportedly spreading in East Africa. It’s alleged that Self-treatment could make malaria drugs less effective.

Blood samples collected from foreigners who had visited Kenya and other countries in Africa between 2008 and 2011 have shown the parasite is building resistance to a key ingredient in malaria medicines called artemether.

Malaria has been resistant to widely used medicines for the past eight years.

The medicines that are derived from a compound called ARTEMISININ, was thought to have been contained in a small area on Thailand’s border with Cambodia and Myanmar.

However, results released on Friday indicate that the difficult to treat strain has either spread to Kenya and other countries in Africa or the local parasite has developed resistance.

According to the study by researchers at St George’s University in London published in the Malaria Journal, of the 28 samples tested 11 were resistant to artemether, some as high as 50%.

{{Rwandan men could make money without having to labour much as Ugandan men are reportedly making money from donating their sperms to fertility clinics.}}

However, details have not been disclosed relating to how much a man makes from donating his sperms and quantity of sperm collected.

It has not been established how much women have to pay for the donor sperm. However, it’s alleged that the amount of money also depends on the type of sperm donor a woman wants to father her kid.

This follows the increasing demand for donor sperm by wealthy Ugandan women who are reportedly not interested in engaging in a relationship with men but prefer pursuing their professional careers without experiencing the challenges of a relationship.

According to a Ugandan Daily most women, who are resorting to Artificial Insemination Using Donor Sperm (AID) to get babies are aged between 25 and 45 years.

Dr. Prakash Patel, a Gynaecologist at the Fertility Endoscopy Clinic in Kampala said, most of the women who are opting for artificial insemination are from the urban corporate class.

“Women today, are more educated and career oriented and therefore do not have much time on their hands. That is why you see some of them waking up at a much later age to have children,” Patel said.

Some women resort to using Donor Sperm after discovering that they have infertile partners who desperately want to have children as well.

Patel said that according to the international law, every fertility clinic is required to limit every sperm donor to no more than eight children.

However, Patel said the identity of the sperm donor still remains a confidential matter.

“Before women or couples go through the AID process, they sign documents saying they cannot ask for the identity of their sperm donor and the reverse is true for the donor.”

“He cannot even ask questions like where his sperms have been used to fertilize which woman” .

Artificial insemination is a treatment for infertility, when a couple cannot conceive a baby. It involves directly inserting sperm into a woman’s womb.

“In case the half-brother and half-sister resulting from sperm donation have children, there is a high chance of genetic abnormalism and incest among those children,” he explained.

“Society cannot have 1000 children looking similar both physically and genetically. The variation of the human race has to continue,” he added.

There is a strict criterion in which a person first goes through before they become a sperm donor. These include thorough check-ups on the family history, hereditary diseases like diabetes and sickle cells, mental problems, and physical behaviors.

He should be a person who neither drinks nor smokes. Such a person must also be intelligent and must have good hobbies, according to Dr. Patel.

{{In Nyagatare, a teenager identified as Tumusime Dan 12 reportedly died from eating cattle meat which was suffering from Black Quarter disease. 14 others have been admitted.}}

The incidence occurred at Kabare 2 village, Nsheke in Nyagatare district.

Black quarter disease also refered to as Blackleg, is an acute infectious disease of cattle manifested by severe inflammation of the muscle.

Since the admission of 14 people to hospital, 3 have remained hospitalised, 11 have so far been discharged.

Nzabandora Eliazar has been discharged from the Hospital. He noted that he first developed severe stomach cramps, malaria and diarrhoea.

Ndazigaruye Gervais, a veterinary Doctor in Nyagatare district, told Press in the area that the tests and the symptoms manifested by the patients, concluded that they had eaten meat of cattle suffering from black quarter disease.

{{A new partnership has been announced bringing together Health Store Holdings (HSH), Family Health (OFH) Foundation, GSK, Ecobank and the Rwandan Ministry of Health.}}

The partnership is aimed at establishing 240 health posts across Rwanda over the next three years.

The innovative partnership aims at increasing access to high quality essential medicines and basic healthcare for about two million people every year in rural Rwanda.

This is the first step in an overall ambition to create up to 500 health posts in Rwanda over the next seven years as per a public-private partnership between the Ministry of Health and HSH, and in alignment with the Rwandan Government’s Vision 2020.

This health post model, known as Child and Family Wellness (CFW) Health Posts, will operate under a business-format franchise network.

They will be run by experienced nurses providing an entry point into the formal Rwandan public health system.

This franchise model, which has been successfully piloted in Kenya, will give nurses joining the franchise access to finance and training in finance management, enabling them to earn a living whilst also increasing access to high quality essential medicines and basic healthcare for their local communities.

GSK has already committed £900,000 to HSH to get an initial 60 health posts up and running. Under the terms of the new partnership, GSK will provide £1.8million in new funding as an interest free loan to enable HSH expand the franchise network by a further 180 health posts.

The Rwandan Ministry of Health will facilitate the availability of designated physical structures for CFW Health Posts and specifications as required under this Partnership.

Negotiations are at an advanced stage within Ecobank for nurses buying into the franchise to receive loans at affordable rates through Donor subsidies.

Both GSK and Ecobank will contribute to a bursary to enable continued nurse training and development. HSH, the for-profit entity behind the franchise, will provide ongoing training, mentoring and expertise to support the nurse franchisees.

The Minister of Health Dr. Agnes Binagwaho hailed the partnership saying it would add value to the quality of health care provided and bring health care services closer to the communities.

“With this partnership, we are assured of quality of health care extended to our people including more accessibility to drugs especially in remote areas which eventually leads to our ultimate goal of having a healthy population for economic development,” Binagwaho said.