Only 1.5 per cent of newborns in Rwanda tested HIV positive this year down from two per cent in 2016 — an achievement the country hopes to sustain in the fight against the killer virus.

The reduction was confirmed by both the Ministry of Health and the US agency, President’s Emergency Plan for Aids Relief (PEPFAR), which works with the government to provide antiretroviral treatment to more than 94,000 Rwandans, including over 1,800 children.

The 1.5 per cent figure represents less than 100 babies at the age of 18 months found to be HIV positive.

With one month to the end of the year, the Ministry of Health is confident that this number will not increase and targets to eliminate mother-to-child transmissions by the end of 2018.
“Mother-to-child transmissions of HIV are on the decline. Between 2014-2017, the transmission rate was kept under two per cent,” said Placide Mugwaneza, director of HIV Intervention Unit at Rwanda Biomedical Centre.

“We have implemented a co-ordinated national HIV strategic plan that has been vital in provision of evidence-based treatment to HIV-positive mothers to reduce risk of transmission of HIV during pregnancy, delivery and breastfeeding.”

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Antiretroviral treatment

Rwanda introduced lifelong antiretroviral treatment in 2010 and has made it available to all HIV- positive mothers across the country.
Ms Mugwaneza said the challenge now lies in sensitising pregnant mothers, especially in the rural areas to test for HIV and immediately start treatment if they are positive.

In the region, Kenya has also seen an accelerated scale-up in prevention of mother-to-child HIV transmission over the past ten years.

Kenya’s Ministry of Health reported an increase in the number of women tested during pregnancy — up to 1,233,462 — which has helped to identify and provide treatment to positive mothers.

Over 90 per cent of those who tested for HIV were provided with highly-active antiretroviral therapy during pregnancy and advised to avoid breastfeeding, thus reducing the HIV transmission rate to less than two per cent.

READ: Kenyans on ART doubled between 2007 and 2012

Access to healthcare

According to UNAids, HIV transmission are still a problem due to lack of access to healthcare especially in poor communities, as well as cultural childcare practices that  lead to transmission of HIV from mother to child.

In Uganda, only 2.6 per cent of infants tested positive for HIV in 2017, while six per cent of pregnant women on antenatal care tested positive for HIV.

The country recorded a high of eight per cent in the number of mother-to-child transmissions in 2010, but in 2012 the rate started dropping after the government adopted programmes that urge all HIV-infected pregnant women to be on antiretroviral therapy for life.

Tanzania started offering free treatment to HIV infected mothers in 2013, and now offers drugs to over 50,000 women who are pregnant and HIV positive.

Tanzania now targets to have at least 95 per cent of HIV positive pregnant mothers on antiretroviral treatment by 2018.

The World Health Organisation estimates that scaling up interventions in sub-Saharan Africa could prevent over 250,000 new mother-to-child infections annually.

In 2015, Botswana, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Swaziland and Uganda met the Global Plan target of reducing mother-to-child transmission by 90 per cent.

Globally, Cuba, Belarus and Armenia and Thailand are the only countries that eliminated mother-to-child infections in 2016.

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