UNICEF UNICEF As The Although More The UNICEF has welcomed the announcement of a national campaign to eliminate the vertical transmission of HIV from mother to child in Rwanda and confirmed its commitment to support the government in ensuring that all women in need will be reached with a new, more efficacious HIV regimen by 2015. The campaign was launched on Thursday […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[75],"byline":[276],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-201","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-homenews","byline-christian-bizimana"],"bylines":[{"id":276,"name":"Christian Bizimana","slug":"christian-bizimana","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":null}],"contributors":[{"id":276,"name":"Christian Bizimana","slug":"christian-bizimana","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":null}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=201"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=201"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=201"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=201"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=201"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=201"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nhas welcomed the announcement of a national campaign to eliminate the vertical
\ntransmission of HIV from mother to child in Rwanda and confirmed its commitment
\nto support the government in ensuring that all women in need will be reached
\nwith a new, more efficacious HIV regimen by 2015.
<\/strong>
\n
\nThe campaign was launched on Thursday last week by Rwanda\u2019s First Lady, Mrs.
\nJeannette Kagame<\/span>, in the presence of the Minister of Health and other
\ngovernment officials, UNICEF\u2019s Regional Director for Eastern and South Africa,
\nElhadj<\/span> As Sy<\/span>, representatives of the U.S<\/span>. President\u2019s Emergency Plan for AIDS
\nRelief (PEPFAR<\/span>) and other bilateral partners as well as the President of the
\nElizabeth Glazer Pediatric AIDS Foundation.
\nis co-championing the call for the elimination of mother-to-child transmission
\nof HIV by 2015. UNICEF Regional Director As Sy<\/span> said he was confident that
\nRwanda can meet its goal of reducing the transmission rate among children born
\nto women living with HIV to less than 2 per cent. \u201cIn order to achieve this
\ngoal, we have to make sure that all pregnant women with HIV can participate in
\nprevention programmes<\/span>, including adolescent girls and those living in remote
\nareas. UNICEF stands ready to support the government in identifying the gaps in
\naccess and in removing bottlenecks that prevent women from making use of the
\nexisting life-saving services.\u201d<\/span>
\npart of the elimination campaign, Rwanda plans to ensure that all HIV positive
\nwomen receive the most efficacious ARV<\/span> regimens through expanded coverage of
\nquality services. Furthermore, the government wants to make sure that pregnant
\nwomen access health services earlier, that HIV incidence among women of
\nreproductive age is reduced, that comprehensive knowledge on HIV prevention is
\nincreased and that all women have access to family planning. Rwanda has a birth
\nrate of 2.8 per cent with a fertility rate of 5.3 per cent. It is also
\nAfrica\u2019s most densely populated country.
\ncampaign will strengthen the links between MCH<\/span> and HIV programmes<\/span> and further
\nenhance the already high involvement of male partners in prevention and testing
\nprogrammes<\/span>.
\nRwanda has one of the lowest HIV prevalence rates amongst pregnant women in
\nEastern and Southern Africa \u2013 currently standing at a national average of 4.3
\nper cent – rates in the capital Kigali are much higher (between 16 and 34
\nper cent).
\nthan 20,000 children below the age of 15 live with HIV in Rwanda. Over 90 per
\ncent have been infected through vertical transmission. HIV positive women
\ncan transmit HIV to their children during pregnancy, delivery or breastfeeding.
\nWithout intervention, the risk of transmission is more than 30 per cent.
\nGovernment of Rwanda, through the support of international partners, including
\nUNICEF, has been able to significantly increase the provision of PMTCT<\/span>
\nservices. <\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"