AIDS conference opens in Kigali

A three-day International HIV Research Conference opened here Wednesday.

The research conference, under the theme “Using Evidence to Save Lives,” brought together 400 global experts and researchers on HIV/AIDS.

Speaking at the conference, Edward Mills from Global Evaluative Sciences, Vancouver, Canada said estimated HIV testing and counseling coverage among pregnant women in Africa has improved from 9 percent in 2005 to 45 percent in 2012. Continue..

UNAIDS estimated that there are 35 million people living with HIV worldwide. In 2013, new infections stood at 2.1 million while 1.5 million people died from HIV related infections.

South Africa tops the African table of infected people with 6. 27 million people, followed by Nigeria with 3.2 million people. Infected people in Rwanda are estimated to be around 250,000.

Sabin Nsanzimana, researcher with Rwanda Biomedical Center said male circumcision is one of the measures that fits well in Rwanda’ s HIV prevention mechanisms.

“We have been implementing male circumcision as one of the prevention measures for HIV and figures indicate that young people are highly participating in this. In just one year we have reached nearly 80,000 people in the age brackets of 15- 24 years,” he said.

During the event, Rwanda officially launched a one-year campaign to engage the media in promoting HIV/AIDS awareness. The campaign stresses the role the media can play in fighting the spread of the virus.

Statistics from the Ministry of Health showed that on average, one person is infected with HIV every 30 minutes in Rwanda.